semiotics for leaders

DANIELE TREVISANI

SEMIOTICS FOR LEADERS The Exa-Leadership Model for Leadership and Human Potential Development

©COPYRIGHT DANIELE TREVISANI, 2015

©COPYRIGHT MEDIALAB-RESEARCH, 2016

WWW.DANIELETREVISANI.COM

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Dr. Daniele Trevisani www.danieletrevisani.com Semiotics for Leaders. The Quest for Deep Meanings, Value-Based Leadership, Energies and Behaviors

ISBN: 978-1-329-59007-6

Contents Semiotics for leadership: a new approach (Abstract) The Exa-Leadership Model® for Human Performance & Leadership Modeling Why Semiotics is the Science of the Future for Leaders

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The Power Profiles of Leaders

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Exa-Leadership: 6 Power profiles for different types of leadership

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Bioenergetic Primal Leaders

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Psycho-Energetic & Psychological Leaders

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Micro Leaders

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Macro Leaders

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Project Leaders

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Spiritual Leaders

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Fully-empowered Leaders

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Centers of Gravity” (CoG) of Performances

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The conceptual network of Human Power

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A new light for observing what Performances really are

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How many energies do we really have? The Way Towards “Powerfulness”

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There is no Power without Knowledge. Wisdom and “Noesis” for Climbing the mountains of life

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Energy and Awareness: A new form of Insiprational Leadership

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Small Signs prepare Great Stories

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Visual representation of the HPM Exa-leadership model: Where our Energies come from

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A winning Recipe for Human performance

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"Personal Progress"... towards what?

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Semiotics, leadership and life-purpose. find the True Leadership Style and its expression channels: Semantics, Syntactics and Pragmatics

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What does “Better” mean for you? A Holistic interpretation of leadership

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The Six Factor of Leadership (Exa-Leadership)

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An effective model for work on the human potential

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The alchemy of Human Energies: work on local districts and total energies

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Review of the Exa-Leadership Model

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Observing our thoughts as a Micro-Skill that can be learned

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Existential Analysis: Meaninglessness (Lack Of Meaning) Vs. Search For Meaning

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Inner resources and personal growth: passion and meaning of a fight From lost ancient wisdom to a new wave of human energies 3

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What is a "result" for you?

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Leadership as generation of Positive Egregore

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Leadership in the Roman Empire vs. modern Toxic Corporate Leadership

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Return to sensing, intuition and instinct

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Train the mind as a muscle, pump up and tune up your left prefrontal cortex

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The holistic approach: taking care of human communication, soul and body Finding Inner Energies

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Living your life and not other’s memories

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Self-Honor vs. Fake “fast & easy” Success - An alternative approach to Self-Evaluation

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Fight against the giants

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Find and follow your true Archetype

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Let the trip start

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Self Consciousness and Strength

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Focusing Exercises

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Looking forward

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Go beyond your culture… or “when sheep in the flock start to ask the pastor where they are going”

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Ancient wisdoms

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Believing

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You can dream, you can act

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What is your true value?

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Fight and think as a free spirit

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The quality of personal life experience

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Living at a higher level… are you getting enough happiness?

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Retargeting Mental Energy (RME)

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Find a living Gym for your soul

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The Get-Ready Mindset

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Semantic Soul: the search for meaning of life

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Personal energies for the life journey and Self-Expression

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The Experiential Filter (Quality of Experience)

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Taste the moments, love any single frame

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Finding “frames”

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Life frames, and the meta-capacity of “dealing with the unexpected”

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Life choices and degrees of freedom. A free soul is able to free others

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Dust and shadow

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Do not silence your internal voices

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20 Human skills worth cultivating

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Awareness-Related Skills

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Recovery Related Skills

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Action Related Skills

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The Courage of Being and doing what must be done

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Science Box: Four Levels of Empathy, knowledge and will for getting out of “Cultural Prisons”

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Excaping the Cultural Prison

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Soul Box: Delphic Wisdom

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Author’s profile

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SEMIOTICS FOR LEADERSHIP: A NEW APPROACH (ABSTRACT) THE EXA-LEADERSHIP MODEL ® FOR HUMAN PERFORMANCE & LEADERSHIP MODELING

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“People travel to wonder at the height of the mountains, at the huge waves of the seas, at the long course of the rivers, at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motion of the stars, and yet they pass by themselves without wondering ” St. Augustine of Hippo

Abstract Leadership is a holistic spectrum that can arise from: (1) higher levels of physical power, need to display power and control others, force superiority, ability to generate fear, or group-member's need for a powerful group protector (Primal Leadership), (2) superior mental energies, superior motivational forces, perceivable in communication and behaviors, lack of fear, courage, determination (Psychoenergetic Leadership), (3) higher abilities in managing the overall picture (MacroLeadership), (4) higher abilities in specialized tasks (Micro-Leadership), (5) higher ability in managing the execution of a task (Project Leadership), and (6) higher level of values, wisdom, and spirituality (Spiritual Leadership), where any Leader derives its Leadership from a unique mix of one or more of the former factors. By using the six-levels taxonomy, it is possible to build specific Power Profiles of leaders, detect the communication signs that are used in generating leadership messages and which need to be improved. It is also possible to define ways to improve leadership in a holistic perspective, aimed at uncovering new ways to express Human Potential and human energies at higher levels. The deep meaning of leadership and its application for reaching positive and useful purposes are explored by means of “semantic maps” that look for the connections among human energies, performance and leadership.

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WHY SEMIOTICS IS THE SCIENCE OF THE FUTURE FOR LEADERS Semiotics, the science of meaning, codes and communication, is an extremely powerful tool that can help leaders to be more effective by acquiring the most profound side of leadership: the building of sense, purpose, and vision, inspiration for the Self and for entire groups. In Semiotics, Leadership can be analyzed in two very different ways: (1) “Denotative Analysis” (or “Denotation”): examination of behaviors, communications, acts, relational styles, the external forms or “signs” used by leaders to build and convey their leadership, reinforce it, or simply “act” as leaders (clothing and dress codes, verbal style, non verbal style, the type of car, the painting on the wall, even the location chosen for a meeting, and literally anything that can become a “sign” of a personal way of interpreting leadership); (2) “Connotative Analysis” (or “Connotation”): the personal interpretation of a sign, the internal representation of meaning, the “story” behind perceivable traits, the evaluation of behaviors as “good”/”bad”, of tasks as “easy”/”difficult”, of people as “active”/”passive”, and any other evaluation. Denotative Analysis should be as much as possible “objective”, nonjudgmental, descriptive, sensorial, refer to perceived signs without any attempt to judge it, while Connotation, on the contrary, is and must be the judgmental side, seeking to extract the “sense” of any sign, evaluate it, confront its essence with values, beliefs, and even personal norms. The work I conducted during 30 years of research and practice identifies the 6 main “vectors” that leaders use in generating both their internal world-views and their external communication. The Exa-Leadership models derives its name from the word Six (Exa) in Greek language. In this model, Leadership is a holistic spectrum that can arise from: 9


(1) higher levels of attribution of meaning to physical power, which produces external communication signs or “power display”, acts, behaviors, or symbols used to display power and control others, show force superiority, ability to generate fear, and seek group-member's need for a powerful group protector or Alpha Leader (Primal Leadership), (2) attribution of meaning connected to the display of superior mental energies, superior motivational forces, being energetic and smart, motivated and mentally tough, an attitude perceivable in communication and behaviors, such as lack of fear, display of courage, determination, resistance and resilience, lack of anxiety, drive to action (Psychoenergetic Leadership), (3) higher meanings attributing to managing the overall picture, showing a high level of skills across very different areas and fields of knowledge (Macro-Leadership), (4) higher meanings attributed to being extremely good in highly specialized tasks, without need to getting the whole picture (Micro-Leadership), (5) higher meaning attributed to display power and ability in managing the perfect execution of a task (Project Leadership), and (6) higher level of meanings attributed to values, wisdom, and spirituality (Spiritual Leadership). Any company places expectations and very often lots of money on shaping public opinion’s views about how it wishes to be perceived. Perception Engineering is really the effort of shaping and manipulating perceptions by scientifically placing and choosing the right “Signs” that can convey the right “Perception” in a given target audience, or change it strategically. Any Leader and any company derives its specific Leadership Style 10


and Behaviors from a unique mix of one or more of the six factors.

THE POWER PROFILES OF LEADERS The “Power Profile” that emerges shows graphically the type of Leadership style. This is an example.

Primal Leadership: Meanings concentrated on:  Display of Phisical Force  Alpha-Male behaviors  Rudeness  Aggressiveness  Territorial defence  Bodily Strength  Power Display

Primal Leadership has a direct link with our animal side, the most basic instincts of survival, sex, reproduction, food, defense and attack, which require strength and fighting. The external signs of this leadership attitude are everywhere and depict a historic stage of humanity where the animal side of humans is still the grounding force of external communication acts, even in the business environment, despite any tie or effort to acquire a higher status as “enlighted” species. This can be the observed clearly in how western sports (as Soccer or Football, Volley or Basket) still contain a very high dose of combat and aggressiveness. Even more, combat sports, as seen in western MMA 11


(Mixed Martial Arts) adopt a “Primal Style” of Martial Arts: external signs are filled with strong bodies, tattoos, and muscularity, behaviors as confrontation, aggression, and visually, lots of blood. For those who adopt this view, if there is not enough blood, the fight has not been good enough. Instead of showing the deep respect of the adversary in the prematch confrontation, athletes are expected to practice “trash talk”, offend each other, show disrespect, and “fire up” the atmosphere, very likely to enhance viewer’s smell for blood. Everything is loud, from the music to the public screaming and the level of aggressiveness. This is a completely different way of interpreting the meaning of the word “Martial Art” if we confront it with oriental cultures and practices, such as in Karate, Judo, Aikido, Wushu, Taekwondo, and many others, where the “Signs” use are much more clean, minimal, there is no unneeded aggressiveness whatsoever except for the focused action, participants are expected to behave with great composure and respect, atmosphere is permeated by mystical forces, deep inner strength, search for spirituality, no need for excessive external strengths display. The emphasis is on the search for inner energy (the “Chi”, “Ki” “Qi”) that needs no external demonstration, even when Martial Arts (as for Samurai or Ninja warriors) became a matter of life and death. The same distinction holds true for Leadership Style. We can have an “externally powerful” Rambo-like leadership style, based on show of power, aggressiveness, status symbols like huge cars, building, private airplanes, behaviors of “boldness” and power, or a “Chi-based” style of leadership emphasizing inner strengths, based on remaining humble and internally powerful without any need to “overshow”. These two distinct styles can be analyzed deeply by means of Denotative Analysis (what external and perceivable signs and behaviors leaders use) and Connotation Analysis (what meaning are conveyed by specific signs and behaviors). So, the Tao symbol becomes not only a graphical display, but the symbol of an entire worldview of the search for harmony and inner energies. And on the contrary, a “Death Skull” symbol becomes the sign of bravery, the lack of fear and love for fight. A storm can be used to visually “suck” the meanings associated to rapidity, flash action, power and devastating energies. 12


The choice of any symbol will denote not only a graphical choice, but the appreciation or belonging of the individual to an entire world-view. Semiotics is not just visual, it is poli-sensorial. The way you shake hands can convey meanings (gentle, strong, or agitated), what you eat and the way you eat it, even the way you walk and your posture. The same holds true for the choice of a manger of a specific dresscode, the verbal and nonverbal signs used, the perfume he/she will use, the place where he/she will want to set the next meeting or the painting on the walls. The following figure shows another set of images that convey entire “worlds of meaning” in every single image. What is important, is to understand that the understanding of symbols is not “automatic”, they depend on the culture, on interpretation, on the understanding of what “layers of meaning” are behind any sign.

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EXA-LEADERSHIP: 6 POWER PROFILES FOR DIFFERENT TYPES OF LEADERSHIP The Exa-leadership model attempts to grasp which Communication Aspect is most active in a leadership style, and what generates strong leadership as opposed to weak leadership.

BIOENERGETIC PRIMAL LEADERS The next graph depicts the Power Profile of a Bioenergetic Leader or Primal Leader. Bioenergetic Primal Leadership Meanings focused on:        

Dominance Display of Force Power Territory Toughness Body display Aggressive style Rudeness

© Model copyright by Dr. Daniele Trevisani ww.danieletrevisani.com

PSYCHO-ENERGETIC & PSYCHOLOGICAL LEADERS The next graph shows the example of a leadership style focused on Mental Energies, rather than on physical strength or display of force superiority.

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Psychoenergetic Leadership Meanings focused on:        

Determination No Fear or Anxiety Motivation Resistance Resilience Mental Awareness Mental Strength Positivism

© Model copyright by Dr. Daniele Trevisani ww.danieletrevisani.com

Each leadership style has its own peculiar characteristics, briefly highlighted in the lateral box. It must be clearly stated here, that any specific leadership style would require a whole manual, but this is neither the space nor the purpose of this book. The purpose of the book is to provide an overall picture and some practical tools to help leaders in shaping their own leadership style with higher level of consciousness: becoming more and more aware of the type of leadership they are building, the external forms that generate that leadership style, the impact, and the internal power and skills that are needed to generate real leadership, opposed to “facade” and fake leadership.

MICRO LEADERS

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Micro Leadership Meanings focused on:  Attention to details  Localized skills  Perfection of movements and thoughts  Improvement on segments of performance  Individual skills  Hyperspecialization © Model copyright by Dr. Daniele Trevisani ww.danieletrevisani.com

MACRO LEADERS

Macro Leadership Meanings focused on:  Wide spectrum of skills  Encyclopedic approach  System balance and equilibrium  Interactions among parts  Overall System performance © Model copyright by Dr. Daniele Trevisani ww.danieletrevisani.com

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PROJECT LEADERS

Project Leadership Meanings focused on:    

Getting things done Deadlines Steps and To-do-lists Individual task distribution  Segments of Flow  Individual responsabilities  Execution © Model copyright by Dr. Daniele Trevisani ww.danieletrevisani.com

SPIRITUAL LEADERS Spiritual Leadership Meanings focused on:    

Why we do things Future generations Help and contribution Spreading values not just projects  Soul and Spirit  Enlightening  Global responsabilities © Model copyright by Dr. Daniele Trevisani ww.danieletrevisani.com

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Any leader can be analyzed and examined with the purpose of determining its Power Profile, its strengths and weaknesses, and which type of Leader is required for which type of Organization.

FULLY-EMPOWERED LEADERS A fully empowered Leader has one or more vectors at very high levels.

Fully Empowered Leaders  Phisical fitness, Body  Motivation, Identity  Lack of unuseful Anxiety and Fear  Focused “Centers-ofGravity Skills”  Good Macro Picture  Project Management  Vision and Values, sense of Purpose © Model copyright by Dr. Daniele Trevisani ww.danieletrevisani.com

Any type of Leader can be charted (to depict an overall view) and deeply analyzed on specific traits that constitute his/her Leadership styles and Leadership Improvement Needs. Semiotics becomes extremely useful when it comes to identifying the signs that can give us indication of the level of power and strengths (or deficiencies) in any of the Exa-Leadership variables. 18


CENTERS OF GRAVITY” (COG) OF PERFORMANCES Another valuable contribution of Semiotics, a science that has “meanings and codes” at its center, is the identification of “Centers of Gravity” (CoG) of Performances: the areas in which an improvement can really determine an increase in performance and team work and therefore the areas on which leaders should concentrate and bring their energies and the energies of the team members. This concentration and ability of focusing the “Centers of Gravity” (CoG) derives from the need to focus energies “where it counts” and therefore where the meaning and implications of what is done is higher. Example o Cog: for a trainer it would be not very meaningful to get an enormous level of skills on photo-editing, since any program - even freeware programs - can do good level visual slideshows. Isn’t rather more meaningful to increase the skills related to Public Speaking and Participants Involvement (“Centers-of-Gravity” of a good training session) (cell #3)? And also very probably to connect with the cell #6, the deep understanding of why that training is important, what it aims to achieve, what is its deep meaning, what values and deep attitudes it wishes to reinforce and which to throw away. Is it just “training for fun for the employees of the month” or is it a “training where you confront yourself with your deep changes?” Are you confusing the meaning of those two activities? Do you see that they share the same label but convey different deep meanings?

These questions are just a sample of Why Questions and What Questions that are at the core of Semiotics. Semiotics is the Science of Signs, Symbols, Meaning Communication, the science of secret Codes, the science that aims at uncoding reality. Semiotics, also called Semiology, analyzes the functions of signs and symbols in human world and in any other system, and is the foundation of any modern communication science and Systems Science. The roots of Semiotics can be traced back to Aristotle analysis of persuasive messages, to ancient Latin and Roman thinkers that tried to decode how persuasive speech functioned and European philosophers from the medieval age onward. 19


Considered a part of philosophy, barely known even by academics, it has been neglected by modern psychology and management science, considered too exoteric, alchemic, and strange. Its roots, based on a “search of meanings”, are disturbing for the narrow-minded short term-based companies cultures, and in modern eras dominated by hard data. In “fast and easy” mental diets, that search seemed too hard to be achieved. But then, deep “crisis of meanings” arrived. The collapse of giant Multinational corporations like Enron, the “Too-big-to-fall” companies financial collapse of the Junk Bonds era, the “fall of the Giants” in the “Internet Bubble” Age, Corporate Scandals like Volkswagen diesel engines crisis1, huge catastrophes like Chernobyl, Fukushima, Three Miles Island, just to mention a few. In all of these Crises, the underlying root-cause problem was the Leaders’ lack of values, its behavioral consequences, the loss of meaning of what wise and good Leadership really is. A Value-Based Leadership, a Wisdom-Based Leadership mentality, was lost. Well, when we look at any type of crisis, organizational crisis, personal crisis, and human factor crisis in a broad sense, meaning is not just something. It is everything. Without a sense of meaning in what we do, we would not even wake up in the morning. Organizations that perceive no more meanings in

1 Volkswagen, the world's biggest automaker, went into a huge crisis over its rigging of diesel engine emissions tests in America and Europe in 2015. Volkswagen (and related manufacturers of the group like Audi) has been accused by German, US and several other prosecutors on a criminal investigation. Leaders and Employees held responsible were prosecuted for fraud. About a quarter of the company's market value was wiped out in the first week. Losses for powerful shareholders such as the Porsche family, Qatar and the German state of Lower Saxony, and car owners, were just the beginning of a global awareness of consumer trust, a catastrophinc loss of trust in the whole Car Industry and the image of its leaders as people with no moral values.

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what they do, dissolve quickly. Leaders whose words seem just empty talk, lose power quickly and get caught fast as bureaucrats or fake leaders rather than charismatic leaders. From public speaking, to leadership behaviors, up to the ability to reveal codes and mysteries of mankind, semiotics is the basic discipline that can shade light where other cannot. Signs are forms of Communication, a sign is an “external” clue that “indicates” or points to some deeper layer. A sign can be a mark, it can be used to convey a simple bit of information, or convey entire life-contents or corporate stories. Signs can be perceived in the environment by any sense, Visual, Auditory, Tactile, Olfactive, Taste, inner perception, and arrive where other communication forms do not arrive. Signs can also be built and become the most powerful human intangible tool, constructed in linguistic units or other more complex holistic communication forms to generate strong psychological effects.

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Semiotic is the Science of Signs. Its applications are so widespread that any field of human life is potentially explorable as a system of codes, signs and meanings, external behaviors and deeper intentions, external representations and inner values. And we can remember, just to mention some, that Semiotics is the science behind any type of Secret Code decoding. Therefore, it can be very useful to unlock some Secret Codes of Leadership. This work aims on Semiotic for Leadership is the search of a new contribution to some of the yet unexplored areas of Leadership. In a Semiotic view, it is important to identify which communication systems leaders employ to define their leadership, and therefore, a Semiotics of Leadership can really be seen as a science of the different Leadership Styles and different communication styles. Every leader learned a different set of signs, to convey different sets of meanings and underlying values. The Semiotic Exa-leadership Model identifies the “6 Primordial Models” used by leaders to establish their status and communicate. We will get to them very soon. As a preparation, think of symbols as “denotators” (signifiers) of some deeper and sometimes hidden meanings. Semiotics takes care of this special relationship between external symbols, signs or emblems, and deeper meanings, up to the level of what effect they can produce on people. Can the use of a given word be persuasive? Or is it better to find another word. How will a given body language sign be interpreted by the audience? Can that uniform really convey respect? What do you have on your desk or at the walls of your house? Are you aware of the interpretation that people give to them? Symbols can be representative of a whole world-view, such as the swastika used by the Nazis Party, or the hammer and sickle of the 22


Communist Party. But also the body of a bodybuilder in a Gladiators movie, a symbol of power, strengths and courage. Even objects can be used to convey meanings. A luxury car or a fancy house can be used as a symbol of status, and this attempt can have the desired effects of depicting a positive image, or instead become a boomerang on relationships. Even the red light that you see at the traffic light is a sign with much deeper meanings (stop, danger, blood). A semiotic analysis of Leadership must therefore look at the associations between Leadership and its significant connections, such as power, status, leadership communications, understanding and misunderstandings, ability to convey powerful messages, human energies, and how they are brought out at their best, not only through words but with an entire set of tools. One of the most significantly concepts associated to a Leader is his Power, so let’s look at some deeper connections.

THE CONCEPTUAL NETWORK OF HUMAN POWER Power is the capacity of reaching a goal or get something done. Reaching a goal, heading towards a vision or fulfilling a task requires energy. One of the highest skills of leaders is that of activating people’s power and energies towards a goal. To activate means to put those energies into a flow, a flow that can build or destroy almost anything. Power to act and to generate changes makes the difference between life and death. Think of how important leadership can be in managing a fire brigade team, or coordinate a rescue team, and you will find easily how leaders need not only external signs of leadership (e.g. uniforms) but really internal set of tools and values that make them special people. Several “semantic maps” (a Semiotic tools) will be used to show the meaning connections among hot topics of leadership. 23


As this first semantic map shows, ability and power are closely connected to skills acquirement, to mental faculties, to knowledge, and leadership.

This map shows connections among concept from WordNet® an

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official database from Princeton University2. Given this complexity a working model that deals with the ambition of helping humans in reaching their full potential in leadership should really be holistic and pragmatic. 

Holistic (in this approach) has the sense of encompassing the large variety of disciplines that enter the field of real leadership, such as management science, biology, psychology, linguistics, communication, neuroscience, and several others.



“Pragmatic” in our view, means “practical”, focused on “what works”, what can be useful, centered on the real-life possibilities of applications and the will of finding really working paths of improvement.

A holistic/pragmatic approach to Human Potential does not make a clear line between pathological conditions and “normal” condition, sick or fit, white or black, but considers instead any human as a “system” whose energies can vary along a continuum, a system whose possibilities can unfold given proper stimuli, starting from any condition and state. The holistic/pragmatic approach therefore becomes useful both for counseling interventions and for coaching, for research purpose and for management of HR interventions, for sports athletes and for high performance teams in any field. There is no limitations to what can be achieved by a good work on Human Factor, since wherever we have a Human Being, any form of improvement will be possible given the right will and the right knowledge.

2 George A. Miller (1995). WordNet: A Lexical Database for English. Communications of the ACM Vol. 38, No. 11: 39-41. Christiane Fellbaum (1998, ed.) WordNet: An Electronic Lexical Database. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

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Knowing how humans function enables almost everything. Ipsa scientia potestas est Knowledge itself is power. The clinical area is not marginal. It also concern the psychosomatic improvement, the mental condition, or the advanced frontiers of human understanding. A solid work on Human Potential, Performance and Leadership must comprise the Mental State in which humans work, as well as that mental state is the right one for the goal, and how to improve it. It must also include a strong foundation, teaching values and forcing them to be applied by leaders into everyday behaviors and everyday decisions.

A NEW LIGHT FOR OBSERVING WHAT PERFORMANCES REALLY ARE Getting rid of anxiety, depression, sick moods, is important and is a strong achievement for a good work on Human Potential. But it is not enough. After “cleaning” your machine from any unwanted burden, after fixing it and removing the dust, you might want to race with it, or use it for a wonderful trip to any destination. The race of life or the trips of life as an opportunity are so many, and the time so little, that it is really worth trying to get rid of any unnecessary dust and burden that are cluttering our energies. A human potential model aims at reaching positive conditions, as feeling good and full of energy, and considers this condition as a sacred destination for all Human Beings. The following semiotic map shows that performance can have two very different set of meanings 26


1. A demonstration, a sort of “presentation” or show 2. A form of expression, a contribution. Our approach is solidly grounding into the second area: performance and leadership as a field of self-expression rather than a mere “packaging”, nice to see but deeply empty of values.

Leadership has to do with the ability to unveil full Human Potential in the people that work towards a goal and in an organization. 27


Full Human Potential is a goal to achieve for mankind and for every free soul. This dimension is not only practical, it becomes spiritual, it goes beyond the individual and reaches families, teams and organizations, or even entire nations and areas. When positive leadership unveils, we see a huge wave of positive energies coming out, projects, advancements, energy that busts the fog that blocks the sight of the positive destiny that every soul was born for. Every Human Being derives power and performances from the ability to generate the right level of energy for the task - not more (it would be a waste of energy), not less (the task would not be accomplished).

HOW MANY ENERGIES DO WE REALLY HAVE? THE WAY TOWARDS “POWERFULNESS” Knowing how many energies we really have, opposed to an out-offocus picture or distorted perception, is a precious piece of information. To learn that, we have to acquire new special skills, the skills of “selffocusing”, installing a “mental radar” that scans our deepest “signs” of internal energies, and their flow. Semiotics therefore is not only a science for external signs, but also a discipline for self-listening and self-improvement. The "Psychophysiological Flow", as Ikemi3 points out, is a concept created by Carl Rogers, founder of the Humanistic Psychology approach,

3 Ikemi, Akira (2005), Carl Rogers and Eugene Gendlin on the Bodily Felt Sense: What they share and where they differ, in: Person-Centered and Experiential Psychotherapies, Vol 4, N. 1

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to describe the ‘sensory and visceral experiences’, or the flow of internal sensations that the individual can perceive, experiences that are sometimes aware and sometimes denied from awareness. We often do not see the signs of stress that our body is giving us. We do not see the level of energies in people around us. We do not perceive the active values in others, they mental maps, despite the many “signs” that we could learn to perceive and interpret. One of these experiences, in our approach, is the ability to read our “potential energy” as opposed to “supposed energy”. Our perception is distorted by so many external messages on what we can do and we cannot do, that we stop listening to what our soul wishes for us. Rogers stated that there is an ongoing flow of experiencing inside every human being and that the ability to connect with this flow (become aware of it) and to provide correct labels for the perceived sensations and emotions (process called by Eugene Gendlin "Referencing") has a direct impact on emotional wellness. A person can turn to it and discover meaning from those experiences. He also articulates the relationship between words and this flow of experiencing which can be used as a ‘referent’. Matching words and the referent ‘encourages a further flow of the experiencing’4. As this semiotic map shows, the search for power is a search for potency, effectiveness and strength, but also an opposition to a miserable state of “powerlessness” that ruins so many lives and organizations when faced with really sever challenges. For this analysis it is important to introduce a new concept: “powerfulness”, the deep sense of being and feeling powerful when

4 The first appearance of the concept can be found in Rogers’ book Client-Centered Therapy, published in 1951

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confronting our hopes and life challenges, feeling a powerful to overcome obstacles, and training every single day to improve our own inner power.

The search for Human Performance has to be connected to higher values, a fight against impotence, powerlessness, conditions of poverty, misery, and suffered lives. In this sense leadership achieves a strong and solid emotional meaning for those who engage in this search and strong ethical values. The tasks we are able to perform in life, are really deeply linked to the energy level we are able to access and generate. 30


THERE IS NO POWER WITHOUT KNOWLEDGE. WISDOM AND “NOESIS” FOR CLIMBING THE MOUNTAINS OF LIFE Even small tasks like making a phone call or going into a bar and interact with someone, can become huge mountains to climb when we are empty of energies. And very often we give up even before trying reaching the first step. Our view is that it is always worth trying to improve ourselves, we can become alchemists of our personal growth, alchemist for organizations or clients, and deeply inside, researchers. Researchers do not just look for data. Researchers look for knowledge, meanings, truth, getting rid of fake perceptions. The result of a good research into the truth is “Noesis”, the generation of new patterns of thought, new light, new knowledge that replaces fake or unreal assumptions and truths. Been rooted in ancient European philosophical texts, we will often pay a tribute to Latin Wisdom, phrases that explain, much deeper that modern “fast and easy” manuals, deep meanings for leadership. Qui audet adipiscitur S/he who dares wins The art and science of accessing and opening the vast amount of hidden human energies has just begun. Fortunately, a new Science of Human Factor is rising, a science of what Humans can do, achieve, and generate, when functioning at their best. Any science is based on knowledge. As the following semiotic map depicts, knowledge or “Noesis” is strongly related to Power. Cognition, knowledge, and therefore training, study and research can generate Power

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Having “Power without Knowledge” is like giving a gun to a 1 or 2years old baby, that will use it as a toy, very likely killing someone by mistake, generating severe damages. Knowledge, instead, can become the instrument for developing and improving the world we live in. For functioning at our best, we need to take into account the fact that we are made of physical matter (bones, muscles, tissue...) but also have dreams and feelings. Our intangible states, emotions, our levels of consciousness, our values, desires, memories, assets and skills determine the performance we can achieve, the life we can have, the mountains we can climb, the oceans where we can swim, the landscapes that we will be able to see. The HPM Exa-leadership Method derives its name from the primary objective of Modeling, giving “shape” to Human Energies, generating power and “crafting” intangible possibilities into real life and real action, as much as an artist gives shape to its distinctive and unique form of art starting from a vague idea. 32


ENERGY AND AWARENESS: A NEW FORM OF INSIPRATIONAL LEADERSHIP When you are inspired by someone, very probably you see a special energy shining from that person, and a form of awareness: the clear sign that the person is understanding “what is going on”. This double presence is a highly valuable form of Leadership, and when these two forces join, it becomes a Leadership masterpiece. For any artistic masterpiece, a special energy and knowledge is needed. As seen in this semantic map, energy is linked to vitally, to vigor, it can take form of physical states as muscularity, it can a scientific concept connected to the laws of thermodynamics (as free energy in a system) up to becoming a state of mind as “vitality”.

Firms without inspiration are like empty souls, walls and computers surrounded by nothing. Athletes without inspiration will find any 33


training boring, and will soon give up. Leaders unable to inspire are not providing real energy. From the following semantic map, we see a very interesting connection with the spiritual side of inspiration, something seen as almost a divine guidance, intangible skills as intuition, and tangible acts such as inhaling, breathing in, the intake of air. This is not a casual correlation, but a real strong connection between what inspiration is on the “material” side and the immaterial act of inspiring energies. To be inspired, we must (metaphorically) breathe, inhale values, good beliefs, hunger for justice, hunger for results.

Leadership regards inspiration. The artist needs inspiration, tools, know-how, the wish to express a thought, spread a message, or fulfill a 34


dream. The ability to inspire people is of the uttermost importance in today's societies, that seem so empty in spiritual values, up to the point that we see higher suicidal rates in richer countries than in very poor countries. Inspiration brings fresh air into people’s lives. The same need for “fresh air” is true about the art of bringing Humans to shine at their full potential, or teams and organizations to work at their best. Over 30 years of research combined with practical work on clients, brought the necessary knowledge and experience to highlight which are the six “main vectors”, the key-variables, or “core-cells” that contain the energy storage necessary for winning this challenge for life. The Exa-Leadership model owes its name from the Greek word for “six” (Exa) and is also a tribute to the enormous heritage that Greek and Latin culture generated for western civilizations. Leadership and self-leadership are like driving. Driving requires direction, a destination, but if you try to climb a steep path, you will also need a strong engine. Empowering our internal engine is our mission. This freedom comes from knowledge of how your human system works, from the ability to recognize lies that have been told you on what your limitations are, how permanent they can be, what you cannot achieve, and start instead to become a researcher of truth and knowledge. Semiotics is the science of coding and decoding, the search for meanings, the search for “truth” and definition of hypothesis. We are the very first targets of our individual battle, the battle for decoding what values have been instilled in us by education and society, family and friends, and start seeing how we use those values in leading people and projects. And when we see that some value is really a fake value, or simply is 35


not more what we believe in, we must have the courage to throw it out of us. VERITAS vows liberality The truth shall make you free This is true for the Self, and also for Organizations, since humans are the living engine of every organization. As for any fuel-cell, our work aims at helping people to find the right fuel (input) before asking the machine to perform hard tasks (output). For those who know what anxiety and depression is, how it makes you feel, how it blocks your future, and makes your present a nightmare, it is important to know that not only something, but a lot, can be done. We need to fix a few things in our internal engine. By knowing how our human machine works, we will be able to set free its potential, we will be able to detect what stops a healthy "breathing" of the engine, to open the flow of air that is needed, and to restart our trip in even better shape. For people who feel already well, and are looking for their best performances, the work on Human Potential is also essential. Before jumping into action we need to fine-tune the engine, and if you are going to race amongst giants probably you will have to do much more than a fine-tuning. You will have to fully empower your engine. Fixing things is not enough. We look for the form of Art that can emerge from any human that achieves his/her potential, Art in a very broad sense, since a father or a mother can be Artists in their role, a teacher can be Artist in his/her role, Sports Athletes and even Managers can become Artists in the way they build a better future. Perceivable human performances are just the external outcome. Optimal inner functioning and well-being is the real internal victory.

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The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance. Aristotle Leadership is not only about possessing uniform and ranks, it deals with setting trends.

As we see from this portion of the semantic mapping of leadership, there is a strong correlation with setting trends and actions. Setting a trend in leadership is not a matter of fashion industry and hairstyle; it is a very practical thing. On example, setting the trend of speaking frankly during a business meeting, setting the will to work on what is determinant for the performance of an athlete, setting the educational trend of making active training rather than passive observational management training on power points. This is quite the contrary of what happens in ordinary HR, where 37


organizations become places where to wear “masks”, managers require top performances from people that are not motivated enough, not trained enough for new challenges, and especially might have not enough passion or inspiration for the values that are behind a challenging project. They might not even understand them. Putting a person behind a desk and giving him/her a Vice President business card means nothing. It’s just appearance. We have to see what actions, what values, what impact on the way of thinking a person can try to bring. The same problem occurs in several Psychotherapeutic approaches, in Counseling and Coaching. Most of the approaches do not care about explaining what the mechanic did on the car. They just “fix it” a little bit and let it restart with the same level of ignorance that was present before the stoppage. The HPM Exa-leadership Model is based, on the contrary, on the strong belief that if one knows how his/her engine is built, how it works, and learns to listen to it well, it will be possible not only to restart, but also to prevent future breaks. The accidents and stops will be of minor entity and minor duration, and even disappear. The first real step towards progress is the acceptance that we do have limitations, since and we are a very complex and delicate engine. Nobody has even asked to a car dealer to sell a car that will never ever break, and we must accept the fact that we sometimes do break, especially when confronted with strong forces. These accidents can be the most valuable form of enlightenment since they enable us to study how we internally work, and start becoming “Self-Researchers”

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It is paradoxical, yet true, to say, that the more we know, the more ignorant we become in the absolute sense, for it is only through enlightenment that we become conscious of our limitations. Nikola Tesla As we see from this semantic map of “knowledge”, to know is not only to have information. It is a Mental Attitude!

It implies not only gathering tons of information but acquiring perception skills and the ability to transform information into meaning, 39


the search for meaning is really one of the most basic scopes of Semiotics. Knowledge is positively correlated with ability and negatively related to inability, therefore, the more we know about ourselves, and the environment, the more we “understand” the meanings and not only collect and just elaborate data, the more able we will become. Accepting accidents, and knowledge caps, as a laboratory for selfknowledge and self-expression is really the best approach for strengthening our soul. Many people arrive to the point of blessing the accidents that caused their need to know more about themselves, but even without blessing accidents, we must be aware of how we work, of how we function. Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts. Winston Churchill Self-expression is a valuable dream for every human being whose heart has not yet been poisoned by cultural and ideological castration of personal ambitions. Perseverance is what makes this dream true. Team potential achievements are even harder; they require the overall success of an organization where Humans are at the core (Human Resources “for real” and not as a mere “tag”) and the coordination of all efforts, energies and skills. In any of these cases, all depends on the identification of where to work on, where to look at, for injecting energies, stimulating growth, improvement, and real progress. On each of the six “working-cells” or “vectors”, all of us, independently from our starting point, can make huge advances, increasing the overall power of Human Self-Expression, Team Expression, and Organizational Expression.

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SMALL SIGNS PREPARE GREAT STORIES The interesting view of Human Potential Research is that before achieving great goals, small goals are required. Why does this happen? The reason lies in the very sense of being deeply human: born fragile, almost powerless, unable to self-sustain. From that point, arriving to a peak where one can be self-sustaining, keep going, look for challenges, and even take care of others, is a great journey. Struggling for becoming fully functioning and gain the best of what we can be is a sacred journey. Fully expressed potential is not just a matter of performance and tangible goals, it is a value for itself, something that gives a meaning to life. Most forms or self-handicapping come from the unknown error of listening too much to social expectations. These expectations bring you towards a statically “normal” or average state where you cannot be yourself. You can express yourself in fields so different as sports, science, cooking, dancing, fighting, running, painting, managing. Or all together. There is no great genius without some touch of madness. Aristotle Do not seek for the “average” path but follow an inspiration, at least one in life in a given period of time, where you feel that you can express yourself. For any little advancement, a new sense of possibility arises, so that as for a climber or an explorer - new horizons soon come up in your path step after step, horizons that were formerly unthought-of, or considered too far, too big, too heavy. This “opening” is generative; it invites individuals and leaders to go 41


ahead, to progress in a further exploration of what at the moment is barely thinkable, and to turn this attitude into advancement for the Self, progress for the family, for a Team, for a Business. Starting from the Self, we can generate progress for a country, up to the entire Humanity. A semiotic map of what an expectation is, shows some very important connections: 

Expectation-belief connection: you expect things based on what you believe it is true. What if someone thought you that it is better to win money betting in the financial market rather than working at your skills? What if a company leader holds the belief that the Stock Exchange will be the final moral judge instead of moral values, searching a strong future, choice after choice?



Expectation can generate apprehension. Apprehension is the doorway to anxiety, to fear and to terror. When one is not free to make mistakes, when one believes he/she cannot commit a mistake, this will determine a decision block.



Well expressed and well defined expectations can generate hope and positive promises

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If you change your beliefs, you can change your expectations. If as a leader you set some strong beliefs, they will turn into different expectations Leading people amid the chaos of expectations, beliefs, truth and wisdom, in a stream of confusion, is real leadership. 43


This is the deepest and highest forms of real Human Potential expression. Understanding, knowledge, curiosity, holistic interests, trials and errors, perseverance, are all ingredients that start to emerge in the alchemic recipe for a new life. It had long since come to my attention that people of accomplishment rarely sat back and let things happen to them. They went out and happened to things. Leonardo da Vinci

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VISUAL REPRESENTATION OF THE HPM EXA-LEADERSHIP MODEL: WHERE OUR ENERGIES COME FROM For a better comprehension anticipation, it will be useful to have a graphic representation of the 6-Vectors Model. Performance & Potential

5 Goals Projects Targets Tangibles

6 Vision Values Ideals Intangibles

3 Micro Skill

4 Macro Skills

1 Physical Energies Bio-Energetic Conditions

Projects and Values Directionality Skills, Abilities, Knowledge Energies (Body and Mind)

2 Mental Energies Psycho-Energetic State

HPM Model © Daniele Trevisani

The HPM Exa-Leadership Model deals with Self Expression but is really and deeply connected to Leadership and overall Human Resources or People Operations, since only a clear understanding of how Humans can perform (or instead be unproductive at low energy levels) generates effective leadership. Leadership is the ability to connect people with one or more deep meanings. It is the ability to connect people with the overall sense and life-purpose of an organization. To generate real and positive leadership we can “anchor” our work to one or more of the 6 semiotic cells. 45


“Entering” in this Six-Cells Model requires first an overall view, and later the analysis of how the single “cells” work, both separately and together, to generate the highest Human achievements. The work on the complexity of these “cells” is crucial. When we are able to generate an advance on any of these areas, we are boosting and empowering a portion of the hidden Human Potential. Here we give a brief summary of what are the main contents of the six "cells". 1. The Psycho-energetic substrate. This “cell” regards the level and meanings of mental energies, the pure motivational energies that individuals are able to generate, mental states that become very practical mental skills, such as focusing, attention, mental shape, ability to find the right mental approach, freedom from anxiety, freedom from fear. Mental energies determine tactical awareness, clean perception, sensing and intuition, and good strategic reasoning. 2. The Bio-Energetic substrate. This cell regard the beliefs and importance attributed to physical wellbeing, the time devoted to it, the level of physical energies (organic energies) at which a person can arrive. This “cell” regards the biology of human beings, their body, the well-functioning of organism, and of its bodily districts; we can say that any soul without a body will just fluctuate, and the body becomes crucial as a vehicle for achieving our goals. The better our body works, the better the overall health and the higher the overall energies will be. Beyond a general and overall attention to the body, that is always a good and healthy habit, every role in life and every challenge poses requests that should be analyzed seriously and possibly met, such as improving cardio for athletes, or strength, or recovery time and resting, eating style, and so on. 3. The Micro-Skills substrate: this “cell” regards the importance and meaning attributed to the details of any performance, the smallest fine points of how actions are put together to generate a performance, up to the details of the thinking process. Every action can be divided into a “chain of actions” that can be improved. Every decision or mental

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elaboration can be analyzed as a sequence of more subtle mental steps. If we are able to focus on these steps, better actions and better thought processes will derive, and the overall energy, again will increase. 4. The Macro-Skills substrate: this “cell” regards the importance and meaning attributed to a “holistic” preparation, holistic knowledge and a wide spectrum of skills. It includes all the skills that we possess, all the range of qualities that we are able to master, and their level of mastery; it also includes the ability to connect our skills with the environment that surrounds us, perceive how it is changing and what new skills we must acquire to be effective in the environment where we must operate. When we feel that our skills are greater than the goal we can jump into any challenge. When we feel that we are powerless, even an ant will scare us. The preparation for the Micro-Skills also regard the “Training for the Unexpected”, face uncertainty, the ability to learn always new skills, to become learning machines that will love to know and research, and living as life-long learners with a passion for learning. 5. Ability to generate Projects and Set Goals: this “cell” regards the importance and meaning attributed to the “practical aspects” of a goal, the ability to transfer an unshaped will or “desire” into a well shaped and defined project. We can have a project against anxiety, a project for a specific sports match, a marketing project, a project for a bridge, or for an event. Any project can be aimed at something or against something that becomes tangible. This “cell” therefore regards the skills to transform a desire into action, operational planning and goal setting. Everything in this cell can be learned and trained. 6. Connection with a Vision, inspiring principles, and Life-Purposes. This cell regards the important and meaning attributed to a spiritual life, to higher values, life-purposes and principles, the internal will of generating a contribution for real and not only in public speaking. Any project or idea can be “full” or “empty” depending on how it relates with our internal values, moral principles, our dreams, and our deepest fears. Human Potential derives its highest form of energies in feeling a connection of our action with strong life-meanings. It requires sense and deep missions. This cell regards the most intangible spiritual and

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existential flow of energy. The content of this cell is very “culturally dependent” (meaning that every culture brings in a given set of values), but we can learn fantastic tools of “Reverse Engineering”. Memetic Analysis, Means-End Chains, and several other tools are there to help our journey towards Full Potential.

Each of these states, or "cells" may have a certain level of "Power", be "full", "abundant", well cultivated, well exercised, or be instead "empty", deprived, weakened, impoverished, or even neglected and abused, malnourished, abandoned. When we say “empty” in a Semiotic term, we really refer much more to a condition of “emptiness of meaning”, rather than physical emptiness. If you see fat leaders, that clearly show, externally with their body, an internal lack of real meaning in the bioenergetics cell. That means lack of perceived importance of physical conditioning, and the continues procrastination of physical activity “due to other concomitant commitments”. I have seen any kind of people and leaders in my life, from Army Generals to Business Leaders, across any sector, and found that the amount of physical activity done had nothing to do with their rank or other concomitant activities. It was a choice generated by deep internal beliefs. Other leaders show very clear absence of meaning in the cell of “higher values” (cell 6), and speculate on drugs that harm people’s health, or could sell landmines made that target kids (landmines that look like toys) without having any trouble sleeping at night, while they should not sleep at all but rather die before committing other crimes against humanity. The overall energy of the person gets enormous benefits from “injections” of energies, skills and knowledge into the single cells. And as any fuel, it must be the good and right fuel, not whatever fills the tank. In turn-every “Injection” resonates into the entire system shaking it 48


and liberating further energies. All the 6 Cells of the Exa-Leadership Model do communicate with each other and are open systems. From a good work on each cell, we can see very tangible effects: improved mood, anxiety and depression quickly and progressively vanishing, and higher results, performance, ability to decide, to be effective and produce positive change in the Self and in others. Human results depend on the energetic state of the different human systems, the ability to cultivate and nurture them, and - at the very foundation of all work - we have the sacred decision to work on them, the decision that “it’s my turn to work on myself”. Local status and the interaction between the various "cells" can produce the maximum of the potential or provide negative synergies, damages and malfunctions that prevent human beings to express themselves, when we do not take care of our “internal engines”. Personal resources and the individual potential can be "read" but also amplified through some serious work on the six areas. Any trip starts with a small step, and the decision to start to work on our “internal engines” and cultivate our best inner energies, getting rid of any pointless burden, is already a huge, gigantic forward step.

A WINNING RECIPE FOR HUMAN PERFORMANCE What makes the difference in human performances and the ability to drive people towards them? From a managerial and sports standpoint, in teams and companies, some evidence is under our eyes. The way people work has lot of aspects, to mention a few: 1. the state of physical wellbeing of people working in teams, 49


2. their motivational charge, 3. their skills-set, 4. their coordination abilities, 5. their moral depth. So if this is true, every lively organization should start using a budget for its training, for it sustainable growth, exactly following those bullet points: 1. programs for the physical wellbeing of people working (on example, “Power for Job” programs, clear motivational and practical incentives for wellness practice), 2. motivational analysis and training, 3. skills training, especially in the Core Skills that generate value, and in the Communication Skills of anybody that has contacts with the external world and “internal clients”, 4. coordination abilities training and outdoor activities, 5. interventions to increase the awareness of the moral depth of the value of what a company is doing and the need for Human Dependability in each role. We do not have to lie or to lie to ourselves; a winning recipe for human-centered organizations cannot be very different. If we start accepting this truth, we will also be able to head towards it Veritas vos liberabit The truth will set you free Living within lies kills people, as living in an environment of lies poisons people. 50


We see huge performance differences between teams that have good communications, people whose energies are turned off, and people, teams or organizations that are capable, strong, motivated, full of energy and enthusiasm, eager to tackle challenges and give real contributions. For organizations, an engineered and well-studied Exa-leadership Human Potential project enables the development of well-grounded and scientifically-based interventions, Team Coaching and HR development Plans. There is no limit to what can be done, projects can be based both on the “liberation” from what is holding down performances, o the generation of completely new paths of expression. A specific work on human energies can target a single area or multiple areas. When we target multiple areas, and perform a work on more than one cell, we are applying a real “complete” approach aimed at achieving full Human Potential for lasting results opposed to a momentary “bubble” with no real future and for sure low dignity. As we analyze how human performances work in the field, and not just on paper, we very soon realize that any truly well-grounded work cannot be based on the view of Human as isolated mechanical systems. If we observe the external work done by any good athlete, we see strong bodily activations, but Full Potential requires also inner mental strength, endurance in training over time, the constant work for skills improvement, abilities in managing eating style and recovery, and, deep inside, you can very often feel and sense a “higher purpose” that guides the person in his search for excellence. Any single dose of this mix could not make the winning recipe. The same holds true for intellectual performances and managerial performances. Being free from anxiety and depression is just the first step. Very often, negative mental states coexist are present also in well performing 51


people, and their performance shall not obfuscate their inner reality. A winning recipe should not consider as pathology any dark thought, or consider “healthy” any person that constantly smiles. On the contrary a winning recipe considers any injection of energy in the human system as a forward-step, and look for any possibility of empowering inner energies and wellness across any possible channel: physical, mental, lifestyle, professional training, and spiritual enrichment.

"PERSONAL PROGRESS"... TOWARDS WHAT? The HPM Model helps to identify a trace of answer in the very basic question of Human Potential. When we try to make a “progress”, well... towards what is that progress? Where are we heading to? What defines a condition “better” than another? What should we work on in order to improve for real and not only as a fake make-up? A very important and very first step for progression is that inner will of working at our personal energies and at our personality, our “model of ourselves” or “inner archetype”. If we want to use tools from Personality Research, there is a great variety of choices. A very popular and useful tool is now known as the NEO Personality Inventory (NEO PI)5, derived from the "Big Five" work on personality traits model. A table of the personality dimensions measured by the NEO PI-R, including facets, is as follows:

5 McCrae, R. R., & Costa, P. T. (2003). Personality in Adulthood: A Five-Factor Theory Perspective, Second Edition. New York: Guilford Press. ISBN 9781572308275.

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Neuroticism

Extraversion

Openness to experience

Agreeableness

Conscientiousness

Anxiety

Warmth

Fantasy

Trust

Competence

Hostility

Gregariousness

Aesthetics

Straightforwardness

Order

Depression

Assertiveness

Feelings

Altruism

Dutifulness

Selfconsciousness

Activity

Actions

Compliance

Achievement Striving

Impulsiveness

Excitement Seeking

Ideas

Modesty

Self-Discipline

Vulnerability to Stress

Positive Emotion

Values

Tender mindedness

Deliberation

Every single trait of your personality is connected to any other single trait. Working towards changing even a single facet of the self is an incredible “mental engineering” operation, not an easy task. However, a nice and very first step is to look at this table and start thinking where we wish to act, what words “elicit” our need for improvements. This is a Semiotic work, meaning that we look at “signs” (such as the words that work as labels of personality traits and facets) and try to improve our “sensing” to see if those words evoke meanings, and what meanings we attach to those words. Every one of us has a different internal representation of what “values” can be, and what “self-discipline” means. A good Semiotic work aims at understanding “what does this word mean for you?” Any leader can start reading this list of traits and simply underline what words elicit some form of interest and activation, and then talk about this with a personal counselor or coach. 53


Other possibilities of work consist in questionnaires that attempt to measure the personal state on the given personality traits and produce a personality profile, a form of “picture” of the personality. However, as for any picture, taking a picture does not alter the subject. We have to find methods of intervention that are really new and generate real progress. Another huge, enormous advancement is that of freeing your concept of “progress” from fake and culturally induced concepts, and start seeking for your inner wisdom and your inner truth that requires no or little external approval. On example, a society that asks leaders to be “data driven” and analytic, automatically pushes away abilities as gut feelings, sensitivity, sensing, intuition, that for leaders are really crucial. So, we and any leader should really get rid of the “fashion management vocabulary” and start listening to what conscience is saying. Conscientia mille testes Conscience is as good as a thousand witnesses

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SEMIOTICS, LEADERSHIP AND LIFE-PURPOSE. FIND THE TRUE LEADERSHIP STYLE AND ITS EXPRESSION CHANNELS: SEMANTICS, SYNTACTICS AND PRAGMATICS

If your life purpose is to destroy, your leadership style will be arrogant. You will be a “toxic leader”. If your life-purpose is to help, your leadership style will be paternalistic. If your life-purpose is to leave a positive mark in the world and be a part in building a better future for humanity, your leadership style will be authentic and variable, a mix between empathy, assertiveness and management by objectives, with a strong vision behind all your key-actions. Life purpose, by any angle you wish observe it, matters. When our life-purpose is not clear, nothing can really motivate us, and we will not be able to motivate others. What can Semiotics tell us on deep life-purpose and Leadership? Semiotics has three specific branches that deserve our attention: Semantics, Syntactics, and Pragmatics. To be very clear, a leader without semantics would not know what he/she is working for and why, and would not even know what to say. A leader without Syntactic would not be able to articulate a project or a discourse in any comprehensible manner. A Leader without Pragmatics would just make philosophy without regard to actions and goals. Here is a further explanation of the three levels: 1) Semantics: relation between signs and the things to which they refer, or meaning. The Semantics of Leadership refers to what question you pose: what is our aim, what is our goal, why is it important, what are we deeply working for? What is full of 55


meaning for you and what is meaningless? What is behind our choices? Do other people in the organization perceive the same meaning, or is there any form of “tribal clans” within the company, each with its own meaning and purposes? 2) Syntactics: Syntactics is the “structure” of language, structure of signs, structure of communications. It regards the relations between signs, their organization in formal sequences. Syntactics of Leadership has to do with very important things as how you articulate the timeline of a year, of a meeting, what signs of pride and recognition you give to the people that work hard with you, how you articulate the structure of a public speaking, what external communication style you decide to adopt. 3) Pragmatics: pragmatics refers to the effect that a message or sign has on the receiver. The relation between signs and those who are exposed to the signs (called “interpreters”) is a pragmatic effect. The Pragmatics of Leadership deals therefore with effects and desired conditions to achieve. It is fundamental therefore to turn the attention not just to actions for themselves but to “end-states” to be achieved. What phrase would you like to be able to say in the final meeting of the next year? What would you like to say when someone asks you what was your contribution during the time you worked for a company? How do you generate motivation to act, persuasion, and move people to action? A good life-purpose starts with at least the aim of functioning at our best and look for our “optimal functioning”, so that we can drive our energies towards higher and higher goals. Organizations often require “action” and practical approach (being pragmatic) Empowering a Leaders “Pragmatic Skills” (ability in reaching objectives) requires a good strategy. It requires also structure, or “Syntactics” of actions organized in steps, sequences, strategies and tactics, and deep foundations made of meaningful purposes (strong development of the Semantic level). Without clear end-states, no action is useful, we literally do not know 56


what to work for. In Human Potential, “More” and “Less” are not only words, they become life directions. Leadership is not only a discipline but a responsibility to fulfill a search for truth and wisdom. One of the greatest questions is "where is the direction for something we call Personal Progress?" This has a lot to with how Educational Institutions teach leadership, with how firms reward or reject people, and what "seeds" they are instilling in young people's minds, young talents and future leaders. We “target” a “goal” as a progress in the way it has been taught to us, until a day when we start questioning if all this is really true. That will be a sacred day. We often observe people relying on external reward system sometimes at the expense their internal sense of honor and integrity. This behavior has become the standard up to the level that nonconformity to what Human Potential is commanded you to be, becomes a moral crime. In a company this usually pushes leaders to look for fast & short term earning at the expense of solid sustainable advancements. In Research and Science this can transform in study on known issues rather than research into harder areas. In the civil field, this can bring us to build and rebuild streets and bridges on the ground rather than finding new and revolutionary air-transportation methods as (just to make hypotheses) sun-powered air balloons for long trips, flying machines and others. Latins had very clear in mind that we indeed can have limitations but it’s not on those that we have to focus, they cannot stop our dreams to master the laws of physics, of matter, of human functioning, of a future for humanity, and the search for light for our soul. Transire suum pectus mundoque potiri To overcome one's human limitations and become master of the universe. Archimedes 57


We must get rid of un-necessary fears and start focusing on our goals. If we look at the Semantic Map of what progress really is, we see that progress is a “travel”, from destination A to destination B. Now if you were the leader of an automotive industry, what is the semantic application of this travel?

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You should absolutely focus on what are the “key-semantic-drivers”, the “meanings generators” of your company’s progress, if you wish to be called “leader” for real. And not just a bureaucrat. The progress could be to increase safety, to decrease fuel consumption, to generate automation for safety processes. Instead, in reality, you mainly observe a trend towards more power, more speed (when even the smallest cars are already too fast for speed limits and real traffic conditions), and more death and injuries. Is that a real “progress”? You could also set apart a budget for studying cars of the future and flying automated cars, maybe with the company of good university departments. You should go to them, without waiting them coming to you! From the map, we also see lots of other several meaning-connections. I will let the reader explore them alone. The one we shall focus on is that Progress has a negative correlation with a retreat, which means to refuse to step back to former conditions that were worse or negative. Now, that has a lot to do with “decisions” and the fear leaders have of taking wrong decisions. Let’s make things clear. Leaders take decisions in conditions of uncertainty, live in uncertainty, decide with less data that those that are needed, but at decisiontime, they do not retrieve. Everybody can take a wrong decision. Everybody can do a wrong action. Everybody can make mistakes. But we have to keep clear in mind that our ship has a destination. It will zigzag but it has a destination. The roots of anxiety and depression often derive from the fear to decide, the fear to try, the fear to be judged, the fear of failure and of being inadequate. A society or culture that tells you that you are a loser if you take a wrong decision, limits your potential and your motivation to try new paths for your journey. 59


It will always be difficult to make authentic Research and Development that targets real improvement in people's life, without a real research mindset, since valuable contributions require time. They are an investment in the future. They require failures. Has anybody ever met a firm that is still on the market without investing in its long-term future or trying new products? Have you ever heard of the huge amount of athletes that are forced by the system in training routines to win the next race or game, routines so heavy up to degenerate the ligaments forever? Is that a great result, to win a race or a game and stop for the rest of your life? Is that Pride? Is that real “Progress”? Please look at the first five ads you will see on any TV or commercial channel and look at how success is subliminally or clearly defined. Success will be presented you in many forms, hidden as a new car, winning a race, higher income, or the promise to be young forever without any trace of wrinkles around the eyes. Always and forever winner, fast & easy success, are just fake promises. If you are a person that looks for wisdom and freedom, ask yourself some "deep whys" about life, share your attempts to find questions with other people that can have the same hunger for justice and truth. Semper ad meliora Always towards better things

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WHAT DOES “BETTER” MEAN FOR YOU? A HOLISTIC INTERPRETATION OF LEADERSHIP If you arrive to a point where you are able to define “better” from a really internal viewpoint, from a novel cleaner way of reasoning, and out of forced cultural or external expectations, you will be very close to wisdom. If you find that what is “better” for you does not correspond to what the mainstream advertising industry is showing, don’t worry. Probably you are on a good path. Express your thoughts freely about what is “better” for you. Free expression is the base of human rights, the root of human nature and the mother of truth. To kill free speech is to insult human rights, to stifle human nature and to suppress truth. Liu Xiaobo When you do so, you are on a good path. If you do not ask yourself what humans can do with their intelligence and technology, and where we should be headed to, that is like using a supercomputer as a typing machine. Is that real Human Potential? To bring out the truth of the need to stop and pose difficult lifemeaning questions to ourselves and our leaders, is like bearing the flag of freedom in a dictatorship in its central plaza. I feel that with just one life to spend, I do not want to waste it in lies on things like Human Potential. It is not “fast and easy”, it is a life-long path. If we do not have a clear idea about what Human Potential is, we will never be Educators, and will never achieve any type of Leadership. 61


To be the CEO or General Director of an Educational Institution does not make anyone an Expert on Human Potential in Education. It's just a tag, anyone who has this tag should be proud of it but start after "second 1" to search for the truth of what a "Progress" really is. Progress, also tends to be very “role-specific”, on example the progress in school grades is usually considered separated from progresses achieved in physical activity, sports and fitness. This separation neglects the unity of Human Potential and the interconnections among all of the human spheres of action. A student, scientist or manager that practices sport will also be a better “thinker” since he/she will get rid of stress and have more physical energies in any field, also intellectually. For the same “law of interconnectedness inner energies” people who do high-intensity physical sports will benefit from learning mental techniques on control of mind-states, relaxation, meditation, and similar. A portion of a Semantic Map of the Holistic approach shows interesting connections. Holistic approaches takes care of the entire “Organism” instead of considering the single parts as separated, looks at the interconnections. Holistic approaches looks at Organizations as “Gestalts”, meaning that everything we perceive is governed by laws of perception and we very often fall into perceptual errors, misrepresentations, wrong confrontations, perceptual illusions.

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Holistic theory is “the theory that the parts of any whole cannot exist and cannot be understood except in their relation to the whole”. Therefore "holism holds that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts"6. Holistic theory has been applied to individuals, organizations, ecology, language and mental states. We tend to identify ourselves in one of the several roles interpreted in life, as a one-shot imprinting, without considering that any role is a transition, is momentary and will sooner or later vanish. Being a kid vanishes, being a teenager vanishes, being a student vanishes, every job sooner or later vanishes.

6

Source: WordNet: An Electronic Lexical Database (MIT Press).

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We should look at our identity as a continuously evolving copresence of several roles, unified by a soul that gives us a life purpose, a solid root of which we can be more or less aware. For this reason the work on Human Potential must include both a work at the very “low level” of the body, a research at the “intermediate level” of skills and abilities, and a work at the very “high level” of values, life-dreams and core beliefs. The tags Low, middle, and high, do not imply here a judgment, but the position along the continuum from tangible Human Factor issues (e.g., body power) to intangible issues (such as, the strength of personal values). When an individual - or an entire group of people - increase their energy levels, new challenges become possible, new ways of being do emerge from the darkness and the unknown, and new forms of leadership arise. Taking full consciousness of our self-potential and fight for reaching it, is a blessed mission, a sacred operation that goes beyond the numeric or professional results that might arrive.

THE SIX FACTOR OF LEADERSHIP (EXA-LEADERSHIP) Viewed by means of the 6 Vectors model, Leadership is a holistic spectrum that can arise from: (1) higher levels of physical power, need to display power to control others, force superiority, ability to generate fear, or groupmember's need for a powerful group protector (Primal Leadership), or “the leadership of the biggest”, (2) superior mental energies, superior motivational forces, perceivable in communication and behaviors, lack of fear, courage, determination (Psychoenergetic Leadership), 64


(3) higher abilities in specialized tasks (Micro-Leadership), (4) higher abilities in managing the overall picture (MacroLeadership), (5) higher ability in managing the execution of a task (Project Leadership), (6) higher level of values, wisdom, and spirituality (Spiritual Leadership). Any Leader derives its Leadership from a unique mix of one or more of the former factors. Any person aiming at being a good leader should always train him/herself on all of the 6 cells, without waiting for a disaster or failure to arrive and hoping to “fix” things quickly. Preparing ourselves and keeping our training and energy level high is a moral value. Semper paratus Always prepared For any subject, we can draw a Power Profile expressing where his level of energies is at a given moment in time.

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FIG. 1 - SAMPLE OF A PERSONAL POWER PROFILE

In this sample, the leader has strong meanings in the well functioning of his/her biological working machine and in the spiritual life, but lacks of ability in project management, in catching the details and in getting the whole picture prospective vision. This sample regards a single individual but every individual has his/her own Power Profile in a given time. Anybody can make improvements on any line of the diagram. The only ingredients are the will to do it, and the search for someone able to teach how to do it, someone who can be a Master, a Coach, a Mentor, or several Trainers along specific variables. All the rest, depends on daily training. “Excellence is an art won by training and habituation. We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but we rather have those because we have acted rightly. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.” Aristotle 66


Understanding the Power Profile and where we can still train, is fundamental today for developing positive change, well-funded leadership training HR Programs, but also in coaching, focusing (focusing which human factor sills, empowerment and interventions are needed for a given challenge), in consulting, in personal growth projects. From a more clinical standpoint, leadership becomes the ability to orchestrate an intervention aimed at increasing one or more of the “energy cells” of the individual, to fight states as anxiety, depression, loss of “momentum” in life, existential falls. This requires combining several tools and managing the overall “orchestra” of stimuli and techniques that can inject the right energy in the right place. Managing a complex intervention is really a form of leadership. Anytime we analyze a person or an organization, we see a complex system of circulating energies, a flow of bodily acts, emotional states, spiritual values, a blow of the vital spirit. The HPM method includes both tangible and intangible factors within a unique system that considers any level as trainable, improvable, dynamic and not static or given, a system on which we can act. In Leadership, we have to consider that requiring Performance without considering the Human Factor aspects is like asking the propeller of a ship to run faster, without considering that the propeller uniquely derives its torque from the internal engine. This engine could be at its peak already, or running relaxed but ready to generate further power, it could be in good shape or bad shape, and even in need for maintenance. Human Performance is like looking at a building, we can do a makeup to a wall, change the roof of a building, but we cannot ask any building to be stable without working on solid foundations and a solid structure. 67


Nobody would build, with at least a minimum of good sense, a skyscraper on an instable ground. Therefore, the work on human potential has the same meaning of consolidating the ground on which the foundations will be built, working at a solid structure that will hold the weight of life, without building over the mud or placing heavy objects on unstable grounds. Each of us feels the need, sooner or later, to develop a potential, but also to access higher planes of existence, seek, grow. We can stifle this natural human drive, but it's like trying not to breathe, sooner or later the need comes out, and it is good to listen to it. We have to find one or more fields of expression, as a morally mandatory mission in life. And before judging ourselves as unable or stupid for attempts that did not work, we should look at what Einstein thought about it: "Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that is stupid." Albert Einstein There is a “call for finding our life-purpose”, and this call will indicate us where we can express ourselves. The HPM model analyzes the human being as energy system, a synergy of forces (physical and mental), whose amplification can increase the degree of happiness, success and contribution. Whenever we are stuck, whenever things do not go well, certainly in one of these cells a leak has sprung or something crashed. Sometimes we are not even following our real life purpose and this blocks all or our system. The model helps in locating where to act, without copying other people and finding our unique soul and personality.

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“Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.” Oscar Wilde The complex system of human energies is composed of subsystems, which can have a variable charge state, and function well or badly, with intermediate degrees of efficiency and effectiveness. To analyze the overall potential of the person, not only on the physical or intellectual level, but as a human being as a whole, we need to locate what are the micro and macro-districts on which one can act and how they interact with each other. We also need to know how to move the zoom analysis from the micro to the macro, from the particular to the general, and vice versa.

AN EFFECTIVE MODEL FOR WORK ON THE HUMAN POTENTIAL Asking ourselves what is our potential, and how much of it we have explored or reached is not a trivial question. This happens in some special moments in life when it becomes important for us to achieve something, improve, and express ourselves. When this happens, a feeling within us changes. From external reality only, we begin to shift the focus towards the inner reality. We ask questions, some of these can hurt, other can break new ground, but when they generate in us in a positive discussion, questions are always helpful. No question is useless when we reason about the sense and meaning of who we are and what we want, when we wonder if and how we would like to build something to be proud of (a performance, or a contribution to others or to a cause), or simply be different or better. For many, the result of a greater focus on personal potential is the 69


desire to explore it, or leave a mark, start projects, being able to look back and be proud of how we lived, what we are and what we have been, and give a positive message for those who will follow us in the journey of life. For others, everything remains stuck in a mental rumination, an uninterrupted flow negative and self-destructive thoughts. Blocked energies erode and destroy. On the contrary, the energies that find a way of expression can produce and generate wealth, life force, love and passion. The difference between the two conditions (growth and development vs. mental negative rumination) lies in having a model that supports our effort to better identify targets, and the routes to take to get there. Failures, falls, blocks, errors, are an integral part of this trip, but their existence does not reduce in any way the value of the trip. What differentiates a man from a stone that is "being compressed", buried, be transported without wondering where, or remain pressed and blocked is acceptable for the second but not the first. Men have an inherent need to "fly", to express themselves, to "research", to reach out, to give meaning to their lives, and this need for meaning and sense applies even to every single day and even single action. When we get to the point of feeling that we belong to a “flow” of energy that started much earlier than our birth and will continue much after our death, we will start to be at ease with the idea that we wish to be a part of that flow and not just play single roles in life. I do not belong to any age and to any place: outside of time and space, my spiritual being lives his eternal existence. Alessandro di Cagliostro, also called Giuseppe Balsamo (1743 – 1795), Alchemist Those who deny this need for self-expression, the call for a connection with a universal flow of energy, do apply one of the most 70


self-destructive existing psychological mechanisms, identified in the literature as self-silencing: shut-up your internal voices, kill your aspirations, put the cap on your dreams and needs, stop believing in anything. When you start to accept that life is boring and will always be, or that anxiety or depression will always be with you, or that you will never find your real potential, your self-castration begins. This also means thinking that everything is useless; that nothing is worth, that the difficulties are too many, or the world in the end is unchangeable and always went this way. Lies. Lies we tell ourselves to avoid (just to use a more technical term) a "cognitive dissonance," the conditions of difficulty we encounter when we realize that we posses at least two needs or beliefs that are not compatible between them, something in our life is not going as we would like, or we could be the best or just different. Cultivating human potential is instead a moment of liberation. There are also implications in terms of health: when a person has no mental energy, or has no longer any value or ideal to support it, or lack the skills to cope with stress in life, the body suffers up and can get to the point of getting sick. The desire to progress, to ask questions about "who am I, what satisfies me, where I want to express myself, with whom, why," is a goal and an inevitable passage for every sensitive soul. Giving impetus to the journey of life always make sense. Whether you wish to do it for your personal evolution, or rather the path is aimed at professional and business or team, it always makes sense. Both trips have depth and value. Both are worthy of attention and support. A person whose life is stuck off is not helpful to anyone. Just as it is not useful to have incompetent and unmotivated leaders in companies and teams. 71


The strongest teams in the world, and the greatest champions of all time in any discipline, or the greatest thinkers of history, are such because they continue to ask questions and do not miss "the call of nature", the ancestral instinct that whispers to us about evolution, which encourages us to move forward, to be better. Without a model that will help us find the directions of growth, our efforts may be noble but vain. You run, you are anxious, you invest time and energy, but often without a good map guidance. The result is a huge dispersion. A good model instead helps to more quickly find the way. If a model does not offer incentives, addresses and guidelines, it is completely useless, like trying to orientate on a wrong or upside down map. A model of human potential can also be used in solid projects of business coaching, consulting, corporate training, in sports coaching, in counseling, in leadership training and any other field where human factor makes a difference. Since when he began to exist, man strives to build maps for orientation and not getting lost. We have maps of the deeper layers of the earth, of the oceans, of the cosmos, but - strangely - we are not provided with effective and validated maps to guide us in our personal development or in uncharted territories of the human potential. Accompany people on this trip is, for me and any other who believes in Human Potential, a great honor. “Hold fast to dreams, For if dreams die Life is a broken-winged bird, That cannot fly.” ― Langston Hughes

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THE ALCHEMY OF HUMAN ENERGIES: WORK ON LOCAL DISTRICTS AND TOTAL ENERGIES

The energy of the mind is the essence of life. Aristotle The human being has its own global energy economy, a set of delicate balances from which he derives the degree of overall "power", the ability to deal with cases, actions, challenges, problems, small or large, simple or complex, dominating them, or - otherwise - getting crushed. The alchemy of the entire personal energy is tremendously complex. Even the local districts of the human system have their own local economy. Alchemy is the activity that searched for the dominance of matter, forerunner of chemistry in medieval times, but we can identify an interpersonal chemistry, alchemy (the way two individuals relate to each other) as we see in common language: "their chemistry was wrong from the beginning -- they hated each other"; "a mysterious alchemy brought them together"7. When organic alchemy or interpersonal alchemy works, that means that we have been able to produce the right reaction among the ingredients of a delicate recipe. We examine not only the whole, but also specific parts. The energy economy covers both macro-regions (e.g.: physical and mental) up, scale

7

WordNet, Princeton University.

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down, to touch very specific micro-economies. There are local economies in the physical districts, like a shoulder, knee, stomach, and every other organ. The same is true for the economies related to mental skills, such as concentration, situational awareness, sharp decision making. Without understanding the complexity and inter-relationships among systems, a systemic leadership will never be achieved. As seen in this example, taking care of the body means much more than lifting a barbell, it means to take care of several sub-systems and this requires leadership, and a big picture or “holistic view”. The same holds true for organizational leadership.

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The mind has its own global economies which lead it to work for better or worse, as well as economies in specific cognitive areas, e.g., creativity in finding solutions decreases when we are overstressed, or under excessive emotional fatigue, while relaxation and mental training increases it. Each district (both corporeal and cerebral) is also an open system, and is affected by the districts with which it interacts. The compound of individual energies is therefore articulated and determines the performance that the person may generate. Each organ lives of exhaustible resources, has its capacity thresholds, specific levels of resistance to stress and breakage, which cannot be ignored. When we ask too much to ourselves we break. For example, rheumatologists and orthopedic doctors study the concept of "joint protection", that is, the '' economy of the joint ": how much load it can hold, how much work it can absorb, what can damage it, what activities can toughen it. But without a holistic approach, a doctor would not care of your joints economy. He would probably give you an anti-inflammatory and throw you out of the office, ignoring your need for stretching, integration, physical activity, and the economics of your joint. Each area of the body, such as a knee, has its local economy, and we can study how much a person can run without inflaming it, what are the physical activity that can strengthen it, or rather hurt it, what kind of nutrients are needed to keep the cartilage in good condition, and even the skills needed for lifting a heavy object without damaging it. Asking people to give performance without studying (1) the state of the energies they have, and, (2) local economies most directly involved in the specific performance, is not our philosophy and not even an attitude of good leadership. The same "districts-based reasoning" also touches the economies of the cognitive and mental functioning. For example, we have 75




an "economy of decision-making skills",



an "economy of anxiety,"



an "economy of relational energy."

Taking decisions requires energy and we have to balance it and recover after stressful decisions. Facing anxiety and overcoming is an energy-consumption activity for the mind, and we have to realize how much anxiety burden we can carry and what would instead kill us. Relational energies are also a limited resource. If we do not consider that human relationships require energies we could fall in error of not respecting our energy balance. To work seriously to human potential and organizational development - it is necessary to empower the ability to shift the level of analysis from the micro to the macro, and vice versa, with a strong ability to zoom-in on the "centers of gravity" of performance and optimal functioning of humans.

REVIEW OF THE EXA-LEADERSHIP MODEL Conceptual Framework Overall Human Performance is affected by a holistic set of variables that can be identified and tested. The variables identified in the Human Potential Modeling (HPM) approach include 1. Organic states (such as muscle conditioning and state, aerobic conditioning etc). The organic state can be measured on local districts or organs (e.g. heartbeat at rest, heart rate variability) or at the macro-level. “End-state variables” define the KPI (Key Performance Indicators) that are set as targets to be achieved after a specific training or improvement path. The work includes the 76


ability to detect the neuro-anatomical conscious processes that take action during a performance, and the hard task of bringing to awareness some of the key neuro-anatomical sub-conscious and unconscious processes that occur during performances, usually occurring without individual self-awareness 2. Psychological energies, mental states (brain wave frequencies, overall mood and emotional states that are lived by the individual before and during a performance). This includes the capacity to remove anxiety, the ability to find the best mental condition for the individual or the team, the ability to maintain the optimal condition under stress or in case of loss of functionality of body areas, pain and fatigue, the mental reaction to situations of inferiority (technical or physical), the situational awareness and strategic lucidity that Humans are able to generate. The work on mental energies can arrive up to the level of Consciousness of the Nervous System, the ability to identify the level of consciousness a person is living, the ability to self-detect the activation of the sympathetic nervous system or parasympathetic nervous system, the ability to self-detect the activation of the right or left prefrontal cortex. 3. Subtle micro-skill acquisition levels (on example, the ability to contract specific muscles up to their full potential or to activate entire kinetic chains according to learned paths). Micro-skills also regard interactional and communication issues, both at the level of intra-personal communication (self-talk) and the level of Command and Control Communications (as the case of the degree to which an athlete is able to follow the instructions of the coach under emotional stress, or in presence of pain, and in acoustically noisy environments). Subtle micro-skills work can regard increase in sensing skills, proprioception, exteroception, higher ability in focusing on specific external messages extracting them from the surrounding noise, and even the ability to determine the right mental processes during very demanding tasks. Increased Attention 77


Skills in information processing often makes the difference between success and failure of a challenging mission and even determine life and death. Micro-skills are situation specific, that means that specific micro-skills set do exist for Athletes, for Athletes in relation with their Coach, for Astronauts, for Astronauts Intra-Crew dynamics, for the interaction of Astronauts with Control Room Operators, in a Medical Team during a surgery, in a Rescue team, in the Command of a Ship, in Special Forces and Army tactical operations, in remote control, and any other thinkable highdemanding Human Performance condition 4. Macro-skills: the extension and range of skills that are acquired not only in the “core discipline” but also in nearby disciplines does increase the possibility of “managing the unexpected” and be more efficient in self-confidence and practical performance conditions. Macro skills acquisition increases the “comfort zone” since it enables the individual to face both known and new fields with higher confidence and higher probability of success 5. Tangible projectuality: ability to set tangible projects and goals, to define measurable steps, focusing on the “centers of gravity” of the performance 6. Intangible values: the degree of presence in the individual of ideals, vision, values, spiritual beliefs, as opposed to spiritual poverty, lack of beliefs, lack of sense of purpose. Any performance can be more or less connected to a higher purpose, up to becoming a self-expression act rather than a mere mechanical action, and, in semiotic terms, a signifier, a moment of connection to a lifepurpose. The right alchemy of Personal Growth consists in identifying the vectors on which it is necessary to work, and do on them a “transformational” series of operations able to remove negative energies and add positive energies. 78


The second great alchemy of Personal Growth is keeping control of the interaction of the work done on the different cells. How does an improvement on micro-skills modify self-perception and the idea of what we can or cannot do? How does a discovery about new learning on the macro-skills change someone’s values? We know that any discovery changes the former equilibrium of the person, injecting cognitive dissonance and generating the conditions for transformation, and keeping these changes on the right track is really an alchemic work. These are just example of interaction of energies among cells that require the right “alchemic” approach. The same “alchemic” Empowerment.

principle

holds

true

for

Leadership

OBSERVING OUR THOUGHTS AS A MICRO-SKILL THAT CAN BE LEARNED “I'm simply saying that there is a way to be sane. I'm saying that you can get rid of all this insanity created by the past in you. Just by being a simple witness of your thought processes. It is simply sitting silently, witnessing the thoughts, passing before you. Just witnessing, not interfering not even judging, because the moment you judge you have lost the pure witness. The moment you say “this is good, this is bad,” you have already jumped onto the thought process. It takes a little time to create a gap between the witness and the mind. Once the gap is there, you are in for a great surprise, that you are not the mind, that you are the witness, a watcher. And this process of watching is the very alchemy of real religion. Because as you become more and more deeply rooted in witnessing, thoughts start disappearing. You are, but the mind is utterly empty. 79


That’s the moment of enlightenment. That is the moment that you become for the first time an unconditioned, sane, really free human being.” ― Osho

EXISTENTIAL ANALYSIS: MEANINGLESSNESS (LACK OF MEANING) VS. SEARCH FOR MEANING Before entering into further details, we want to spend some words on the issue of motivation underlying performance and potential: "why" we do things. A group of researchers working in the sphere of Humanistic Psychology conducted a study to compare the different perspectives on the meaning of life, analyzing both ordinary people that eminent people (culture, science, politics)8. The fundamental sense that emerges from this research is that the human being needs meanings almost as much as needs air. It needs to anchor its existence to something, it needs to find an explanation. The opposite is a "crisis of meaning" not knowing anymore what we are doing and why, do not believe in anything. The explanation for our actions may be absurd, logical, rational, mystical, scientific, moral. The lack of motivation of doing, being, and existence, leads to a profound existential discomfort. As evidenced by the same authors: Social scientists at Arizona State University analyzed 238 quotations

8 Kinnier, Richard T., Kernes, Jerry L., Tribbensee, Nancy, Van Puymbroeck, Christina M. (2003), What Eminent People Have Said About The Meaning Of Life, Journal of Humanistic Psychology, Vol. 43, No. 1, Winter 2003.

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from 195 eminent people regarding their beliefs about the meaning of life. They emphasized the critical importance of this issue by stating: “Albert Camus (1955),Viktor Frankl (1992), and Leo Tolstoy (1980) all believed that whether life had meaning was the most important question in life. For them all human endeavors hinge on the issue of meaning—without meaning, nothing matters. Frankl (1978) viewed meaninglessness as the “primary neurosis of our time” (p. 2), and Carl Jung (1933) claimed that all of his clients over 35 years old had problems that were related to the question of meaning. In empirical studies, the subjective experience of meaninglessness has been linked to depression (Beck, 1967; Seligman, 1990) and substance abuse and suicide (Harlow, Newcomb, & Bentler, 1986), as well as to other psychopathologies (Yalom, 1980). Although satirical approaches to the meaning of life elicit laughter (see, e.g., Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life), the personal quest for meaning is mostly not a laughing matter. Yalom (1980) distinguished between two types of meaning: cosmic and terrestrial. Cosmic meaning refers to meaning that transcends the individual. Cosmic meaning is usually viewed as divinely inspired. Terrestrial meaning refers to that which is deemed by any individual to be personally meaningful in his or her life. Among the best known positions on the meaning of life are the following:  (a)Life has no cosmic meaning and humans are doomed to insignificance and inevitable extinction. This pessimistic position was held by philosophers and writers such as Clarence Darrow (1932), Bertrand Russell (1981), and Arthur Schopenhauer (1964). A popular corollary to this position is that the question about the meaning of life itself is meaningless. Especially known for his pessimism on this topic, Schopenhauer even extolled the act of suicide and cursed romantic love because it was responsible for the continuance of the pitiful human race (Durant, 1927).  (b) Life has no cosmic meaning but humans can create their own meaning(s). Nietzsche (1957) was a pioneer of this perspective. Existentialist philosophers like Camus (1955), deBeauvoir (1948), and Sartre (1956) and the psychiatrist Erich Fromm (1947) followed his lead. They believed that humans must find the way to face the meaningless abyss and take responsibility for creating meaning out of the chaos.

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 (c) Life may have cosmic meaning. Through honest and intensive search humans can discover truths in life. This is the perspective advocated by Frankl (1992). He believed that it was part of human nature to search for the meaning of one’s existence. In contrast to existentialists such as Camus and Sartre, Frankl believed that transcendent meaning is not something that can be arbitrarily created by a person. It can only be discovered.  (d) Life has a cosmic meaning but humans are incapable of comprehending the complexities of it. This is the perspective of most religions. Advocates include the theologians Martin Buber (1970) and Reinhold Neibuhr (1981), the psychologist William James (1956), and writer Leo Tolstoy (1980). Faith and divine revelation are the means by which humans can connect with (though not fully comprehend) the meaning of life 9.

If we do not perceive a meaning in things, we go into crisis. The lack of meaning leads to disorders or neurosis, and existential distress. Any action related to human potential must then go searching for deeper meanings to anchor, whether in business, in sports, in life, or in the social and personal contributions to a company, to its mission, to a group and its success, or to an ideal.

The Psychoenergetic in HMP method, is a discipline that has to

9 Camus, A. (1955), The myth of Sisyphus, Alfred A. Knopf, New York. Frankl, V. (1978), The unheard cry for meaning, Simon & Schuster, New York. Frankl, V. (1992), Man’s search for meaning (4th ed.), Beacon Press, Boston. Tolstoy, L. (1980), My confession, in S. Sanders & D. R. Cheney (Eds.), The meaning of life, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ. Jung, C. G. (1933), Modern man in search of a soul (W. S. Dell & C. F. Baynes, Trans.), Harcourt, Brace & World, New York. Seligman, M. E. P. (1990), Why is there so much depression today?, in R. E. Ingram (Ed.), Contemporary psychoanalytical approaches to depression (pp. 1-9), Plenum, New York. Harlow, L. L., Newcomb, M. D., Bentler, P. M. (1986), Depression, self derogation, substance abuse, and suicidal ideation: Lack of purpose in life as a mediational factor, Journal of Clinical Psychology, 42, 5-21.

Yalom, Y. D. (1980), Existential psychotherapy, Basic Books, New York.

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analyze, attack and dissolve the roots of meaninglessness (lack of sense, fall in meanings of life), and address the need to rebuild the sense of a human perspective. Challenges for which to apply our energies and causes for which to engage can really be many, removing hunger from any human life, protection of the weak, care of the children, help for the elderly, but also believe in a project or be a part of an important business, or engage in a spiritual path. The disappearance of the meanings of life destroys any will to tackle a project or to engage in action. Our goal is to recover the deep sense, in every area and moment of life: the sense of the day, the sense of an evening, a sense of the afternoon, the sense of a week, the sense of a quarter, the sense of the current year, or the meaning of life but also the sense of a meeting (why this meeting?), the sense of a relationship (why this relationship?), the sense of a project (why this project?), the sense of a challenge (why this challenge? Who or what I'm challenging?). The sharp aim is to increase the anchoring of people in meaningful goals, building them and strengthening them (on one side) and on the other side removing the blocks that prevent these energies to manifest and shine.

INNER RESOURCES AND PERSONAL GROWTH: PASSION AND MEANING OF A FIGHT What fools we are, how many refused invitations, how many ... how many unspoken words, how many unreciprocated gazes... 83


Many time life passes by near us, and we do not even realize it.

From the Italian movie "The Ignorant Fairies" By Ferzan Ozpetek

FROM LOST ANCIENT WISDOM TO A NEW WAVE OF HUMAN ENERGIES You live of your energies. Without mental energies, you are dead in your body. A free soul, instead, can shine immortal. Daniele Trevisani

Personal energy is what moves us, what nourishes us, especially when faced by the highest life challenges. As such, it is not only necessary, it is vital. Our goal is to reach the height of our best mental energies and have them whenever we need them, and help others in achieving their Full Potential. And not only. We feel it is compelling to contribute to something really important, something that can improve the world for real, no matter how little we can do in your lifespan. Do you think that the personal level of energies is “given” and cannot be enhanced by a good coaching and training on mind, soul and body in a “holistic” way? Do you think that Human Awareness can or cannot be increased? If you hear some "inner feelings" that tell you that these questions are important, let's go ahead. 84


When we look at the traditional literature on Personal Growth and Human Potential, we mainly find "fast & easy" cures, approaches that promise happiness, success, money, becoming persuasive, admired, anything, in a miraculous way, as something you can "buy". Believe me, it's a fake promise. The truth about any human achievement is based firmly only on inner advancements in awareness and knowledge, in exercise and training. And not only “usual” training, but also and especially mental training, new approaches, varied approaches, generating unexpected situations, the ability of “dealing with the unexpected”, to produce open minds and people ready to face any type of threat, increase perception, take advantage and sense opportunities when they arise, and even generate positive conditions for them and others. Only continuous daily work on the self and the body can generate and sustain real and lasting results. And the real result is not what movies, ads and commercial programs tell you. It is something intangible that has to do with becoming a free soul. A free soul knows and distinguishes real results from fake targets, and this is one of our main goals.

Temet nosce! (Variation: Nosce te ipsum!) Know thyself, or know yourself

This phrase is visible above the Oracle's doorway in The Matrix movie. Its origins go way back to Greek and ancient culture. The Ancient Greek aphorism "know thyself" was inscribed in the entrance of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi. 85


This phrase means something deeper than knowing obvious things as our name, or residence, or weight and height, it means to understand how we make our judgments, how we reason, how we choose, how we decide what is to achieve and what is not worth our energies. It means the ability to look inside our mind and decide how to clean the mess and refresh it with new fresh air, liberating our soul.

WHAT IS A "RESULT" FOR YOU? The very concept of "results" needs to be redefined. If you live in a society that tells you that you are a loser if you are not a superman, remember that this sick message is wrong. Ancient wisdom knew it.

Impossibilium nulla obligatio est There is no obligation to do the impossible

You should try to achieve your goals, for sure, but what if those goals are fake goals that someone did put in front of you to let you lose focus? The first thing you have to do is to throw away most of what has been presented to you as a “result” from your surrounding society, and substitute it with something that is more pure, more genuine. Which are the parameters you use to evaluate what is a real result and distinguish it from a fake result? Among what you conceive as “results”, are you sure that everything in your mind is really yours? And what if we could find beliefs that you were forced to incorporate when you had not enough mental counter power to analyze what you were mentally fed with? So, how does it feel whenever you are able to detect and eradicate a 86


fake concept from your mental state? Better. Lighter. More "rooted" and stronger, a process that in Bioenergetics Analysis is called "grounding". The ability of "focusing" is a really new tool to achieve, as much and as fast as possible. Focusing, also with some help from an illuminated guide (coach, counselor, mentor, trainer), can drive you to perceive better and distinguish fake results from real results, false targets from real targets.



Is it a result to work more and more hours a day?

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Is it a result to stay in line for transportation or sit in a car for hours?

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Is it a result to have no energies left for taking care of your body?

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Is it a result to forget about the real needs of your soul?

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Is it a result to have less and less time for your loved ones?

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Is it a result to be caged within a mental agenda that is conceived to set you in strict boundaries, concepts that are rarely deeper than the wish to buy the newest phone?

Aren't you sick of feeling fooled by a system that is meant for you to be a part of the produce-consume-die cycle? A system that measures what car or house you have instead of looking at the depth of your thoughts and feelings? Why are people who work so unhappy on Monday morning when going to work? Why are idiots, hypocrites, cowards or arrogant, in toppaid management positions, and why do you seek for their approval? How did you come to the point of considering them "arrived"? Arrived where? A company should and must be a place where people with some 87


common values meet to achieve something great and useful for humanity. A group of people united in a purpose, in a vision, in a value. Unanimi cum ratione United in Purpose"10

LEADERSHIP AS GENERATION OF POSITIVE EGREGORE The reality between what you see inside companies is very different from what has been thought to you. Nice ties and dirty minds, expensive clothes dressing miserable souls, are the average truth you find inside most leaders in most organizations. We too often seen companies leaded by arrogant people, without values, without ideals, idiots who would sell their mother just to get ahead in the hierarchy, to escalate the pyramid of the company or society. Put in front of them a choice between a mildly lower compensation, and a compensation increase of 20% in the next term, requiring a solution that will endanger people of a remote country, or within their country, the second generation after them, and you will see. Sometimes they even do things that might endanger their first generation’s future in 20 years, even their sons, but they do not care. The 7 Generations Principle seems not to apply to them. The “Great Law” of the Iroquois states that it is appropriate to think seven generations ahead (about 140 years into the future) and decide whether the decisions we make today would benefit our children seven generations into the future.

10 This motto is adopted widely, both in organizations and social groups. See on example the Canadian Joint Operations Command, http://www.cmpcpm.forces.gc.ca/dhh-dhp/his/ol-lo/vol-tom-4/449-mts-eng.asp, and the online community of Star Trek gamers http://www.starfleettaskforce1.com/

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Ancient wisdom seems lost in face of a trimester data, a quarterly revenue, or a dental care insurance, or the possibility of having a larger pool in the penthouse. These are not our reference points. Really, they are not. They are not "a career", but an illness. We too often seen companies leaded by arrogant people, without values, without ideals, idiots who would sell their mother just to get ahead in the hierarchy, to escalate the pyramid of the company or society. These are not our reference points. Really, they are not. Isn't there anything else or different? Well. There is! A very ancient world, a world that seems lost, holds this secret. The Greek-Latin World is a "time window" in mankind history, a space that gave birth to places like the Library of Alexandria, where the best thinkers met and lived their life as a community of enlightened individuals. Their passion: to shared ideas and advanced knowledge both in science and self-consciousness. The flow of personal energy and human research is a way of life and not something you can "buy and get done" in a weekend. The search of soul and advancement, the "sacred fire" of human research, are still breathing. All we need to do is to take the spirit of Alexandria, Athens, Sparta, and Rome, and bring it alive, breathe with it and feed our souls in our very own lives. A spirit that brought to mankind concepts of freedom. A spirit that had the noble purpose of having people to join and share, rather than only fight and battle against each other. Communitate valemus (Latin for "Together we are Strong") 89


What could the human race achieve if it embraced the motto "Together we are Strong"? The search for the soul and the best of human energies has no place and no time. There is not a fixed place in history or in a single geographical point. This spirit is an entity, an "Egregore", a positive Egregore, an energetic entity of human power. It appears and disappears from time to time as a precious flower. It is a flower that we want to let grow in our inner garden, now, and forever. Let this way of being be a part of our lives. A real leader is one who is able to bring "positive Egregore" inside his team, passion, real values, real help, real sense of mission, real closeness, and eats the same shit that the others eat or the same cakes the others eat, feeling that he/she is not above the group but in the group. But these leaders are by far less numerous than those who bring inside their team thinking styles pervaded by "bureaucracy for bureaucracy", “negative Egregore”, closure to different experiences, narrow-mindedness, lack of time-perspective, and wrap up all this with a packaging made of "distance" and fake superiority. Egregore11 (also Egregor) is an occult concept representing a "collective state of mind" or "collective consciousness", an autonomous psychic entity made up of, and influencing, thoughts of a group of people. In this perspective, I think it applies perfectly to the concept of "Group Thinking", "Group Atmospherics", "Group Moods", "Group Feelings" that are the Center of Gravity of any Group Performance.

11 The first author to adapt "Egregore" in a modern language seems to be the French poet Victor Hugo, in La Légende des Siècles ("The Legend of the Ages"), First Series, 1859. The word is the normal form that the Greek word ἑγρήγορος (Watcher) would take in French. This was the term used in the Book of Enoch for great angel-like spirits. Source: Wikipedia online

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Positive Egregore do exist (e.g. the search for Human Potential) and we must feed them against negative Egregore (e.g. cultural arrogance, religious movements that oppress free thinking, “memes” that propagate wrong “missions” and sick communication styles in organizations). Positive search is a way of thinking and being. The same way of being that gave birth to concepts as "Democracy" in Greece, the creativity of Leonardo da Vinci in Italy, the Genius of Archimedes in Sicily, and tangible buildings that are still unmatched as the Pyramids in Egypt. What enabled this level of human advancement? And how far could we go if we could reach again that level of sensibility, both as a species, but also and especially in our very own personal lives? We can start here, now, and let this river flow forever in our lives.

LEADERSHIP IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE VS. MODERN TOXIC CORPORATE LEADERSHIP In arduis fidelis Faithful in adversity

The fight for Human Potential is a hard one. One must remain faithful to Human Potential Research no matter how hard it is. This value has intangible enemies. One of the most powerful enemies of Human Potential is the psychological climate, and leaders are the main responsible of this climate. Toxic leadership as a concept is making its way especially in the literature on Army Leadership. A toxic leader is a person who has responsibility over a group of people or an organization; he/she abuses the leader–follower relationship by leaving the group-members or organization in a worse-off condition than when s/he first found them. 91


It is already clear that a Toxic Leader brings his people to mentally starve, to die and suffer either physically or for stress. It is the same type of leadership based on lies and superficiality, a "great packaging and empty values" style. This style brought to corporate disasters such as Enron, and it is present in any world failure. This problem is everywhere. It is so widespread that US Army revised its leadership bible, Army Doctrine Publication 6-22, to detail what toxic leadership means for the first time. Top commanders in the U.S. Army have announced publicly that they have a problem: They have too many "toxic leaders" — the kind of bosses who make their employees miserable. Many corporations share a similar problem, but in the Army's case, destructive leadership can potentially have life or death consequences.12 The manual defines Toxic Leadership clearly and states its dangers: "Toxic leadership is a combination of self-centered attitudes, motivations, and behaviors that have adverse effects on subordinates, the organization, and mission performance. This leader lacks concern for others and the climate of the organization, which leads to short- and longterm negative effects. The toxic leader operates with an inflated sense of self-worth and from acute self-interest. Toxic leaders consistently use dysfunctional behaviors to deceive, intimidate, coerce, or unfairly punish others to get what they want for themselves. The negative leader completes short-term requirements by operating at the bottom of the continuum of commitment, where followers respond to the positional power of their leader to fulfill requests. This may achieve results in the short term, but ignores the other leader competency categories of leads

12

leaders

http://www.npr.org/2014/01/06/259422776/army-takes-on-its-own-toxic-

https://evolution-institute.org/article/us-army-ambushed-by-toxic-leaders/

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and develops. Prolonged use of negative leadership to influence followers undermines the followers' will, initiative, and potential and destroys unit morale." Let's look at leadership and leadership styles in Companies. Today's leaders are unreachable, surrounded by false "yes-man", they don't know anything of what happens in the real life of workers and normal people, they float on an ocean of which they ignore the depth, they do not know the fishes that are swimming underneath, and they feel them as distant as another galaxy. They live in the top floors of prestigious buildings and don't know how the day of an employee is, and the real problems of the clients. The world as an interconnected entity is a "freak" concept to them and what happens in other countries is not of interest unless it touches their personal profit. They are faithful only to themselves and their personal interest. This is quite the contrary of what we would expect, right? We need to be loyal and responsible not only to ourselves, but to mankind advancements. Loyalty and dependability are not an option. They are a must.

Semper fidelis Always faithful

Let's see the distance from the model of the Toxic Leader and the model that emerges from the words of a great Roman Leader, Emperor Maurizio, General of the Eastern Roman Empire in the 6th Century:

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The lifestyle of a General must be linear and simple as that of his soldiers; he must show a paternal affection towards them, he must give orders calmly and always try to give suggestions and discuss important topics with them face to face. His concern should be their safety, their nutrition and the regular payment of the salary...13 Strategikon. By Emperor Mauritius Tiberius (581-602 AD.)

How many companies lost this face-to-face contact with their people and clients? But let's not think that Emperor Maurizio was only a good and wise "father" of his troops. In his treaty on Strategy, he also affirms that a good General, at the first emerging signal of lack of discipline must act to solve it immediately, without postponing it up to the point of letting it grow bigger. Every time you see a corporate disaster (airplane crashes, ships, nuclear disasters as Three Miles Islands, Fukushima, Chernobyl, chemical, pollution, the Columbia Shuttle disaster, LufthansaGermanwings air crash, etc) we see that those companies wrote "Safety First" on every page of their internal manuals and external ads, and had never practiced for real. The top management of almost any company treats corporate values of social responsibility as mere propaganda, assigned to PR companies and campaigns, but has an enormous internal deficiency of real values. The ability to communicate well and lead well is not just a gift from nature but is something that can be learned, achieved, produced by

13 Maurice's Strategikon. Handbook of Byzantine Military Strategy, Translated from Greek by George T. Dennis, University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, 1984.

Strategikon. Manuale di arte militare dell'Impero Romano d'Oriente, a cura di G. Cascarino, Editore Il Cerchio, p. 92

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exercise, by coaching and feedback, and mostly, the will to improve. You almost never hear a top manager or CEO to give any real advice and coaching to leaders and manager on the fact that safety depends on a positive lifestyle, a clear mind able to perceive situational awareness, and Mental Training. Simply following procedures is never enough. Procedures applied in conditions of mental chaos, are completely useless, all the disasters that happened where in companies and organizations whose "procedures" where so many that it was needed a "procedure" even to use common sense. Getting back to a healthy communication style and generating healthy relationships is a must for every leader and every team-player that refuses to live in a box or in a psychologically filthy environment.

RETURN TO SENSING, INTUITION AND INSTINCT Intuition and instinct are a part of our ancient brain skills. Sensing is something that culture tries to hide and wipe out from people, and repressive society hopes you lose quickly, to reduce your power, to let you forget your "animal past" that recognizes threats immediately, to force you to look at TV instead that living as an "animal present". Your instinct skills, your sensing, are the most powerful human factor resource you really have. And you don't need any certificate to get them. They were there with your DNA, they are probably just covered with cultural dust. A dust that a warrior learns to recognize, a dust that a free soul learns to remove. We wish to explore what science brings us to open the dam of this river, but also to dig inside the secrets of the Sensing Skills and Positive Thinking that pervaded ancient wisdom, a wisdom that has no written code but must be uncovered from proverbs, mottos, rather than in easy to find official literature. 95


You don't need to "analyze" an incredible amount of statistical data to understand if you like someone. You just "sense it". You don't need to use complex questionnaires to measure the climate and communication quality in a group. Just look at their faces and the way they walk and you will have a very good "sensing" of what is going on. Many modern companies use "psychological assessment" to evaluate psychological fitness and readiness by means of questionnaires, instead of shadowing them while they are in real working conditions. Sensing, as a skill, is lost. We must recuperate it. A real holistic approach needs to merge modern scientific findings with ancient Greco-Latin thoughts, Modern "Positive Psychology" findings often point to the same “stars and gods” the Greco-Romans looked at. Lots of modern researchers look for new ways of self-expression, often forgetting that some golden rules have already been set. So let’s start with one of the first pearls of wisdom.

Aut viam inveniam aut faciam I'll either find a way or make one

The phrase has been ascribed to the Carthaginian General Hannibal; in 218 B.C. When his generals told him it was impossible to cross the Alps by elephant, to fight the Roman Army, this was his response. This motto seems to anticipate of 2000 years the modern approach to Positive Psychology and many fields such as NLP (a pseudo-science) and several other approaches that sell "magic" and tell you they have

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invented the wheel. The balance of scientific evidence reveals NLP to be a largely discredited pseudoscience. Scientific reviews show it contains numerous factual errors14, and fails to produce the results asserted by proponents15. If we really want to make achievements in personal development, we should stay away from sects and look in a holistic manner to seeds that the ancients wisdom left, together with modern results of communication science and neuroscience.

TRAIN THE MIND AS A MUSCLE, PUMP UP AND TUNE UP YOUR LEFT PREFRONTAL CORTEX Neuroscience research shows us that our brain functions like a muscle: The parts that are more often used do enlarge, get fitter, and become more agile and fast. The parts that are underused become smaller, slower, as if they were mummified. The stimuli that change our brain can be those that come from any day, any hour of the day, any moment in life. Scientific studies that show how plastic the brain is, responding quickly and changing its structure

14 von Bergen, C. W.; Gary, Barlow Soper; Rosenthal, T.; Wilkinson, Lamar V. (1997). "Selected alternative training techniques in HRD". Human Resource Development Quarterly 8 (4): 281–294.

Druckman, Daniel (1 November 2004). "Be All That You Can Be: Enhancing Human Performance". Journal of Applied Social Psychology 34 (11): 2234–2260. 15 Witkowski, Tomasz (1 January 2010). "Thirty-Five Years of Research on NeuroLinguistic Programming. NLP Research Data Base. State of the Art or Pseudoscientific Decoration?". Polish Psychological Bulletin 41 (2).

Sharpley, Christopher F. (1 January 1987). "Research findings on neurolinguistic programming: Nonsupportive data or an untestable theory?". Journal of Counseling Psychology 34 (1): 103–107

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in response to both real-life stimuli and artificial stimuli (magnetic stimulation)16. So what should we do? Human brain has a Left Prefrontal Cortex that has the ability to perceive positive things in our world and in what surrounds us (positive perception) and a Right Prefrontal Cortex that is very good at detecting what is wrong, negative, and the ability of feeling pessimistic emotions. The continuous flow of news, movies, messages that make as anxious, the continuous subliminal message to “become rich and famous or you are a loser" are lies that pump your right cortex and kill you. We must stay away from these messages, as if they were toxic, radioactive, and poisonous. Even talking about negative topics and bad news during a dinner can pump your “negative” side of the brain while a dinner or eating should be a pleasure and a restful pause. But besides specific moments, your whole life is constellated by messages, ads, movies, and people that are lying to you. The very fact of telling you that money and status will decide whether you made it or not, is a lie that trains your right prefrontal cortex every minute of every day. You become extremely good at feeling what you have not yet done. You start to believe that people that are on TV or became famous or very rich “have made it” without realizing that their inner experience of life can be miserable, most of them are severely depressed and unhappy people. We could make a huge list of rich and famous people (artists, movie stars, entrepreneurs) who killed themselves or died from selfintoxication from drugs and alcohol, at the peak of their career and

16 Zhang ZC1, Luan F2, Xie CY3, Geng DD1, Wang YY4, Ma J5. Low-frequency transcranial magnetic stimulation is beneficial for enhancing synaptic plasticity in the aging brain. Neural Regen Res. 2015 Jun;10(6):916-24.

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money possession. Michael Jackson in music, Marilyn Monroe among actresses, the cyclist champion Marco Pantani, the member of the richest Italian family Edoardo Agnelli (Fiat) who, despite the richness and enormity of opportunities, suffered from depression and jumped from a highway. Should we judge these unlucky people “arrived”? “Arrived” where? Who has the arrogance decide for you and to tell you what makes you “arrived”? The more you think about bad news and consider the wrong part of existence, the more you train to suffer. You also become insensitive towards the little good things that you did or happened in your day, even the most subtle positive things. You need more and more results to feel happy, more and more money to feel rich, and at the end you always you feel that “something is still missing to be really happy” This system can make you anxious and feel always inadequate, always out-of-place in your world, always poor. A system designed to make you feel a loser is sick, is a lie. If you look at the lives of the richest people in terms of money, so many of them are so depressed and so many of them do suicide and are into drugs, that you should wonder if they really "made it". Made it to get insane and unhealthy and miserable? Yes, they made it. But when it is the turn to see if they made it in being good people, good fathers or mothers, people with a sense of love for life, a strong spiritual life, an inner and self-sustaining force inside, they "didn't make it" at all. They are miserable inside. When you lose sight of the miracles that life provides to a living soul, even the mere fact of being able to "think" should surprise you, and make us incredibly happy. The very fact of waking up, being alive, breathe once again, is a miracle. Don’t spit on miracles. Live them.

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THE HOLISTIC APPROACH: TAKING CARE OF HUMAN COMMUNICATION, SOUL AND BODY The Greek Aristotle (384 – 322 BC) was the first real communication scientist, much earlier than the opening of any Department of Communication or Psychology. In his treaty on “Rhetoric” he taught us that a persuasive message must contain: 

“ethos”, strong values, a call for ideals and sense of purpose;

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“logos”, a nice organization, a well structured speech, and

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“pathos”, the ability to fire emotions and generate feelings.

As we see from this semantic map, Persuasion has really to do with the ability to generate new thinking, new ideas, reconsider a view, act on sentiments, fight preconceptions, and open the eyes of an audience.

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FIG. 1 - ARISTOTLE CATEGORIES AND THE HOLISTIC APPROACH TO COMMUNICATION

Modern research says he was right. We tend to judge a speech and the speaker against our own values, as Aristotle said, ethos is the effect of feeling in the message the presence of wisdom (phronesis), virtue (arete), and good will (eunoia); There is now high consensus in the scientific community on the Power of Communication derived by emotions, with many of empirical 101


findings: “affectively valence words show an advantage in processing with respect to neutral words, as revealed in word recognition tasks (e.g., lexical decision, Kousta et al., 2009; Kuperman et al., 2014), in naming tasks (Kuperman et al., 2014) or in memory tasks (e.g., Herbert et al., 2008; Talmi, 2013; Ferré et al., 2014), among others”. 17

What does this all mean? It means that we have to learn the Power of Communication, the ability to motivate, to inspire, to share deep meanings, instead of swimming in a pool of banality and empty gossip. Many phrases from the ancient world shade light, and we have to look for them where the Greco-Latin Culture left its seeds. But also in several modern thoughts found in the Anglo culture, at least on its best humanistic side, and for sure not in its materialistic side. The power of some words and mottos is so great that they are still used today after 2000 and more years. Mens sana in corpore sano A healthy mind in a healthy body18

17 Pilar Ferré, David Ventura, Montserrat Comesañ, and Isabel Fraga (2015), The role of emotionality in the acquisition of new concrete and abstract words. Frontiers in Psychology, 2015 Jul 2;10(7). 18 This Latin phrase – as many more that we will not examine - has been adopted widely, showing how deeply Latin Culture pervaded European and US culture. The following list shows some examples:

(list source http://www.thefullwiki.org/Mens_sana_in_corpore_sano) :    

The phrase was a favorite of American President Harry S. Truman. Riverside Military Academy in Gainesville, Georgia uses the phrase as its motto. Hargrave Military Academy in Chatham, Virginia uses the phrase as its motto. R.S.C. Anderlecht uses the phrase as its motto.

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But there is more. Human Potential expression requires not only a good and healthy communication environment (ecology of communication), but a healthy mindset that keeps a positive psychology inside our soul, and a strong attention to our bodily machine, its nurture, its well-being, obtained via physical exercise, good nutrition, and a clear mind. All the three aspects are intrinsically correlated. In this Holistic view, wellness and performance depend on the degree to which we are able to set these conditions, despite what the environment presents us as "given state".

 

                 

Teacher's College of Columbia University has this phrase engraved on its Horace Mann hall, on 120th street in New York City. Motto of the Turners Organization American Turners and their local organizations like the Los Angeles Turners. The Turners promoted gymnastics and introduced PE to schools in America ASICS, company name derived from the phrase. Carlton Football Club uses the phrase as its motto. Army Physical Training Corps (APTC) uses the phrase as its motto. Asociacion Atletica Argentinos Juniors, uses the phrase as its motto. The Israeli Institute of Technology athletics teams use the phrase as their motto. It is the motto of Grant Medical College and Sir J.J. Hospital, Mumbai PERI (Physical Education & Recreation Instructors), which is part of the Canadian Military use this as their motto Widener University and the State University at of New York at Buffalo use the phrase as their motto. The phrase appears in stone on the western facade of the HPER (School of Health, Physical Education and Recreation) at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana. It is the motto of Dhaka Physical Education College in Dhaka, Bangladesh. It is the motto of Sparta High School in Sparta, New Jersey. It is the motto of Roger Bacon High School, St. Bernard, Ohio John Locke (1632-1704) uses the phrase in his book 'Some thoughts concerning education'. Is the motto for Bjelke-Petersen School of Physical Culture, Australia. Mens Sana Basket, a prominent Italian basketball club. Motto of Beale Gaelic Football Club from County Kerry. Used in the film Agantuk by Satyajit Ray. Is the motto of Bridgewater Junior Senior High School in Bridgewater, Nova Scotia.

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To go beyond the "given state" and look for our Full Potential enables the expression of incredible performances and contributions to mankind, and this is our sacred mission. FIG. 2 - THE HOLISTIC APPROACH TO HUMAN POTENTIAL & WELL-BEING

A healthy mind in a healthy body is not only an ancient motto. It is a way of life that is ordinarily unpracticed from ordinary people, and managers in the companies, where the number of hours spent in the office becomes the benchmark, rather than the real intellectual contribution, the quality of your ideas and energies you generate in your working environment. Your real energetic contribution to your company is completely lost, confused with "hours spent inside". You even lose the ability to distinguish the people that are around 104


you (coworkers, consultants, trainers, friends) in terms of the real energies the can provide and bring and you start measuring sick parameters, things as age or career level or the car they have or where they live. Well, let me tell, you, Albert Einstein - in this evaluation system would have never come out of his desk as clerk, since he was not in the academia and was not a well-paid, well dressed manager with a fancy car. But his ideas changed the world. So, where do you want to be? On the side of the material or on the side of the immaterial world? Or in a good balance between them, and if so, where? Are you able to spot people with great ideas? How do you measure them? Latins believed that since we are born we are fully involved in a journey. We run, whether we like it or not. We stop, whether we like or not the stopping areas and landscapes we encounter. And in this world we need to feed our soul and our body with positive energies. Spa as modern structures where originated by the Romans and made free for all the “citizens” in Rome. A Spa is a location where mineral-rich spring water is used to give medicinal baths. Spa towns or spa resorts (including hot springs resorts) typically offer various health treatments. The belief in the curative powers of mineral waters goes back to prehistoric times. Such practices have been popular worldwide, but our culture is so spiritually poor that - despite the Roman habit of having them free and used for meeting, socialization and conversation places now it has become an elite costly service and not a public service. This is just one of the thousands of "ways of living" that we can and must recuperate.

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FINDING INNER ENERGIES

Searching deeply inside Latin Culture, we see a culture that inspired apparently opposite phenomenon as the pioneering scientific discoveries of Leonardo da Vinci or Galileo, as well as the Gladiators fights for life in the Coliseum and the unmatched fighting abilities of the Roman Army. Despite the differences, it is easy to find a deeply rooted acceptance of “challenge” as noble goal, the fearless search for the unknown and the impossible, and “training” for improving personal strength, getting ready for life fights. Per aspera ad astra! Through difficulties to the stars! (Latin Motto)

This habit that found a high expression in D’Annunzio (Italian Poet and Warrior) and his motto “Memento Audere Semper - Remember to Always Dare). The capacity to fight can bring to the ability to fight in life for your values and requires an alchemical transformation. This is a great opportunity which is denied to many, by “labels” that consider any 106


combat or martial training something “violent”, forgetting that peace requires people of goodwill and mental energies willing to engage to achieve it. Anything can become violent, even playing a guitar, depending on the spirit that is used by the players. We need therefore to focus on the “spirit” and the “emotional side” of the game of life and how a good training can help us in an alchemical transformation. Mental Coaching can help to explore how to get rid of negative emotions and discover the secrets that a good Mental State combined with Physical State can generate. These inner attitudes can produce higher compassion, relaxation, deep consciousness, removal from unnecessary aggressiveness, and ability to focus in battle and under stress. You can accept a challenge only if you are mentally prepared for it. Emotional challenges and physical challenges are so great, that either you decide to make your life a constant laboratory of self-improvement, and prepare for it, or you give up. We are not among those who give up.

Qui audet adipiscitur S/he who dares wins

In this world we have the opportunity to do a good journey, and leave a positive mark at the end of your trip. And that’s not all. The ancient Latin culture helps us to understand that we can generate our own journey, we are not forced to “absorb” what the destiny or our culture of origin has prepared for us. But for every stretch of road, you need some form of energy. So, we need to focus on the mental energy you need to make this journey, examine and find some secrets that lie within the ancient Latin culture, and combine old Latin wisdom with modern science. A great challenge! 107


Energies are everywhere. How can you let them grow in you? How can you measure it, how to understand at which level you are in a given moment? We must find ancient secrets and merge them with modern science to find and how to prepare for the battles and to regenerate ourselves. We must find a way to go ahead despite the difficulties, and to exploit the opportunities which sometimes appear in front of us. It is a battle without limits and without end. The only purpose is to improve oneself and the world. Working out combining physical and mental training, forces the brain to reconfigure itself19. In Martial Arts and Combat Sports, some mental dynamics and emotional dynamics of the combat rituals produce a unique quest of reconfiguration, working on both the intangible selfimage and the real body structure. The creation-removal of synaptic connections is accelerated and directed towards different configurations, a different “archetype” that can go towards the “warrior”, the “magician”, the “alchemist”, and reduce archetypes of victimization and helplessness. Becoming more powerful, more resistant and resilient is not only a matter of pride, it is a matter of what you can do with the energies you earned on the ring, on a “Tatami”, or in the gym, and bring them in the ring of life, on the Tatami of a family difficult moment, in a company during a meeting, and also to face the highest challenges of life: growing a family, making new discoveries, try to improve humanity. The more energy you will have, the more you will able to contribute to others, and to fight against your inner fears.

19 Foster PP, (2015), Role of physical and mental training in brain network configuration, in: Frontier in Aging Neuroscience. 2015 Jun 23;7:117

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Working on this endless dream helps us to rediscover the pride and reason to exist. Start working out today on a balance of what you received from the world and what you would like to leave to this world. It will inspire you for the rest of your life.

LIVING YOUR LIFE AND NOT OTHER’S MEMORIES Some humans stubbornly continue to pursue the battle to build something good, commit themselves, and keep themselves busy in trying to improve human condition and overall humanity. Others do not care, others, even worse, destroy. Which category you want to join? Anyone who enlists in the first category shall enter into an elite, an immortal army to which thousands of unknown people belonged, people who have worked in the dark and in silence for a noble cause, but also persons who have become famous, such as Leonardo da Vinci, Mother Teresa of Calcutta, and who knows how many others. Whether you are part of known or unknown, of famous or forgotten, your struggle will always have sense. There is a payoff in choosing to stay among those who try to improve freedom and enhance human potential: to look back afterwards and be satisfied of our very self and what we have tried to achieve. Ampliat aetatis spatium sibi vir bonus; hoc est vivere bis vita posse priore frui The good man extends the period of his life; it is to live twice, to enjoy with satisfaction the retrospect of our past life. (Martial) But this payoff is not the reason, it’s not the ultimate goal. The real goal is being proud now of what we are striving for. We do not have to wait until the final day for being proud. We can be proud in any single moment of our life, when we work on the right purposes. 109


Fama semper vivat May his/her fame last forever (Ancient Latin motto)

But fame after death is not enough. It is what we look for in our daily life that makes it honorable, and if not memorable, who cares. Selfhonor is now! I really think that Leonardo da Vinci does not care, right now, about being famous. He’s dead. But I think he cared to know, while he was alive, he was working on something. Something important. Something that could change the world. Why should we not try? Why should we castrate our very inner sense of freedom? Why living in misery if we can bring light in our path and try to improve our world? There is no religion that can tell you to suffer for the sake of suffering, or to stay in a cave when you can fly. And if the battle is hard, do not fear hardness, do not retrieve in the mass if your path is taking your life towards life. Live like a hero in ordinary life. Luctor et Emergo I struggle (I fight) and I emerge (Ancient Latin motto) Be proud of what you are looking for. Be proud of yourself while you are doing your research. Be proud of be a freedom-searcher and truth seeker. This is a very good way to honor life during life and not only in other’s memories. Dum vivimus, vivamus While we live, let us live (Epicurean philosophy) 110


SELF-HONOR VS. FAKE “FAST & EASY” SUCCESS - AN ALTERNATIVE APPROACH TO SELF-EVALUATION Honor is too often confounded with something that comes from outside, career, certificates, awards, tangible successes, or an attribute that "significant others" give to you. This is fake. Fast and easy money, popularity, luxury products, are advertised as honorable instead of being shown for what they are: fog for the soul. Nothing that comes "fast and easy" will last. No single life has any value if it does not attempt to bring more to humanity than what it received. No great work has ever come from nothing.

Absque sudore et labore nullum opus perfectum est “Without sweat and toil no work is made perfect”

To equal "fame" or "wealth" with real honor is false and fake. This is one of the worst concepts you could assimilate and intoxicate with. And the fastest you get rid of it, the better you will feel and the cleaner your life will become. Your professional choices will also be deeply affected making your life shine like a diamond in the middle of a dense fog where most of the world population lives, including managers. Sometimes a hard choice leaves you with less material goods but with a higher sense of moral integrity and self-esteem. The alternative would drive you directly in the hospital or obituary. Every time our inner mind knows that some sacred rules have been broken, and we betrayed what we deeply are, we get emotional sickness, physical illness, and decreases of our purest energies. Every time we do or even try something that honors our soul and our 111


values we nourish our mind, our body, our self-esteem. The semantic map of Honor is one of the more complex ever seen.

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Honor has not only to do with reputation, but with purity. Purity of intent, purity of thought. Self honor comes step by step, it requires trials, failures, and attempts. We all should accept living with uncertainty, uncertainty about faith, about the future, about material issues, but be sure that we count on something that will always be with us: our values. Any enormous field has been built on single seeds. Parvis imbutus tentabis grandia tutus "Once you have tried small things, you may attempt great ones safely"

This certainty is a shining diamond in a world where we are forced to live side by side with uncertainty and darkness. This diamond brings us much more energy and life than what it appears initially. People who did things like stealing money from poorer people, dishonoring their values, and leaving the world in worse conditions, very often do not live enough to spend that money. Cancers are looking for those people as bees look for flowers. And very often, the internal endocrine and immune system of people who internally know to have a dirty soul, freaks out and does the rest, bringing them to die faster. There is a kind of self-honor, to be reckoned with. Let me explain. It is an honor that lies completely inside you, an honor coming from within and that does not need any external recognition. The mere fact that you know is enough. You know that you do enlist among those who seek, study, struggle to change the world or to improve themselves, and to help others. This generates Life-sense in itself. It’s important and that's enough. And… there's more good news. Anyone who enlists has already won even before starting, because the simple fact of heading towards the light is winning. 113


It’s a win against apathy. It’s a win over the death of the soul. A victory against untold darkness that we carry within us starts from making some moral choices and decide to be a part of the light. This means to try to leave the world slightly a better place. If you succeed it’s ok, if not at least you tried. Universal forces and your soul will be richer and healthier. You will die with honor and without the regret of having wasted your only life. The struggles of life are much sweeter when we perceive fully our inner diamond made of honor and are filled with its light. There will be no difficulty that is able to outshine it. Per angusta ad augusta “through difficulties to greatness”

FIGHT AGAINST THE GIANTS Aut vincere aut mori Either to conquer or to die Those who engage into Human Potential Research are winners from the very start. They are winner morally. But they have to take into account and incorporate the idea that failure will become a life companion, because the challenges are sometimes so large, huge, enormous… challenges against giants that seem so much bigger than us, and it seems useless to even try. Well… some battles require us to adopt the Latin motto “Either to conquer or to die”, because there is really no sense in staying in the middle. Not for the battles that really matter. 114




Ridding the world of poverty, hunger and misery?



Making of every human being a happy creature?

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Knowing the nature of man?

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Understanding how the universe works?

Utopias, some say. Challenges, say others.

There is heroism around. There's always been. It is found in anyone's life will refuses make compromises with his/her values. You find it everywhere. It appears in the eyes of someone who feels the spirit of research, the desire to understand, the desire to challenge ignorance, to change things for the better. All these battles are worth fighting. If you are ready to lose, you can start. If you are interested in fighting, I'll give you some good reason to fight. Coaching is about finding tools, training, and weapons, for your fight. We will fight this battle together.

"Yes, you're right," Liu Kang said. "We will all die, but not today, and not in this battle!"20

20 Dialogue from Mortal Kombat: Existence. Chapter 9. Published: 09-12-06 on website http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3150667/10/Mortal_Kombat_Existence

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Pay attention here. I'm not talking necessarily of physical battles, fights or verbal arguments. There are enemies that deserve the clash but these are nothing compared to the mother of all battles: the battle for knowledge. Searching a cure for a disease is a battle. Fighting injustice is a battle. The attempt to find clean energy for mankind is a battle. The desire to revolutionize transportation systems worldwide. When we will be able – thanks to “flying cars” or any really innovative transportation system to live in a place and work in a place 2.000 km far, we will be really free, mankind will understand what freedom really is, it will be possible to revolutionize the concepts of jobs and living. Many call these ideas utopians: I like to call them “drivers”. A battle is also the freedom to dream and fly with your mind. Projects are nothing but fantasies put into practice. We must give everyone the opportunity to study. We must feed people’s thirst for knowledge. An army of researchers with the common goal of exploring the depth of Human Potential is extremely powerful, it is an army that will defeat the darkness. We do not do it just for material satisfaction; we do it because it is right to do it.

Ab honesto virum bonum nihil deterret Nothing deters a good man from the performance of his duties

Personal Energy is the key for many challenges. From daily tasks as growing kids into conscious adults, to the study the most distant phenomena of the universe, or the inner processes of the mind. All of these challenges require strength and energy. Energy is what you need to be able to dare, to travel with your mind, to go beyond current limitations. To dare is already an act. Without 116


daring, no action that goes beyond the “status quo” (the given condition) is even possible.

Audere est facere To dare is to do.

The fight lacks no enemies: physical suffering, pain, hunger, or intellectual misery, wherever it is. The fight against ignorance, the fight against bullying, violence, arrogance, intimidation, mental prisons, regimes and religions of oppression, of mental control over “thinkers” that refuse to give up, refuse to obey to the rule that generates the “Spiral of Silence”, a place where you cannot speak, you cannot dare, you cannot look beyond, you cannot state a different opinion. Humanity is a sewer but there are also flowers in that sewer and every human being can flourish, if nourished physically and mentally with good ingredients. This is the view of Human Potential. Those who say that there is nothing to do for that, have already lost, mentally. These are all battles. And we are so small against these giants. But we will fight anyway, and we will be more and more. 300 heroes defeated the Persians, and the Spartan Spirit is everywhere. It’s also inside me and you.

FIND AND FOLLOW YOUR TRUE ARCHETYPE Non est vivere sed valere vita est Life is more than just being alive 117


(ancient Latin motto)

If we must fight, let’s fight. We can increase our energy by inspiring ourselves to an "archetype". The archetype is a primal figure, like the poet or warrior, or wizard, an image of a hero or a character that can inspire us, showing us a way of being, thinking and acting. How difficult is it now being "epic" in a world that promotes weakness! A world that brings billions of poor people and children to struggle in search of food and the rich to struggle to lose weight. Yet in this world we are. And it is here that our archetype takes form. Each of us, without being conscious of it, behaves according to the archetype that has unconsciously absorbed into his psychological self. If I see myself as a "helpless victim", I will accept any bullying without fighting, I'll let anyone stop my ideas, and I will let my dreams fly away helplessly. If I see myself as an "alchemist-warrior", I will try to build my weapons; I’ll try to create the conditions for achieving what I want, I will reason about different “action lines”, I will change even my goals if necessary. If I see myself as a spiritual being, I will believe in the sense of my actions. Fatigue and pain will seem nothing compared to what I want to achieve. Many things must be learned in modern societies. Prioritization skills can help everybody – youth, managers, adults - to drive their lives following a sense of mission. And for you, this means learning and preventing the behavior of throwing in the wind your time. If you start feeling in yourself the Archetype of the “fighterresearcher”, you will start feeling the importance of time, knowledge 118


and exploration. Automatic behavioral changes happen immediately: stop wasting time and lives, detect useless and empty activities. Stop watching commercial TV, videogames, stupid movies, mainstream media, acting as a robot inside shopping malls. Choose carefully your information sources. Become a consumer that makes choices based on values. Explore other cultures. Stay tuned to the world as a whole. Does it sound enough?

LET THE TRIP START Dimidium facti qui coepit habet He who has begun has the work half done (Horace)

The archetypes somehow get hold of people and make them act on their command. But there is a fantastic tool that can revolutionize everything. The reflection on ourselves. The question is: "what is the archetype that I'm using now?" Whenever we start even a small step towards a new way of being is important. The start is the key. We, as conscious beings, have power: we can take action to understand which types of archetypes are active in us and which are not, we can learn to choose different archetypes, and we can do much to determine the “color” of our lives. I did it for me; I do it again and again every day for me and for my clients. The “ongoing research” continues ... like breathing. If breathing continually feeds our blood with oxygen, "breathing" a good archetype continuously feeds the mind with positive thoughts and ideas. The archetype allows us to follow a path, a path that the archetype shows us once assimilated. The Latin culture offers us the image of the Gladiator, but it’s not the only one. In Japan we find the archetype of the 119


Samurai, and each culture is filled with archetypes. Each archetype is a combination of beliefs, behaviors, and mental states. For example, consider the archetype of the Samurai, drawn from the ancient text Hagakure, the Code of the Samurai:

The Samurai must have: 

Sense of duty (Giri)

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Determination, Resolution (Shiki)

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Generosity (Ansha)

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Firmness of soul, fortitude (Fudo)

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Magnanimity (Doryo)

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Humanity (Ninyo).

What does this mean for you? Ask yourself this. Ask yourself what it means for you to practice “determination”, to do things and not wait any longer, and when you have to apply it. Ask yourself what’s the meaning of patience or fortitude.

Every day we devote our energies to growth – might it be spiritual, physical, mental, or social - is a tribute to life. Our strength is increased. And every time we make good use of it, someone in heaven thanks. Daniele Trevisani

When these energies come into you and become operational, active, 120


real in your behavior, you will feel a force that you've never experienced before. The energy and strength have enormous power: they create. The force, in its variety of manifestations - physical, mental - generates. It can create a better world. As well as its absence kills. You can perceive personal energy from very small persons like Mother Teresa of Calcutta, as well as in athletes who are physically powerful and have enough courage to enter the ring, take punishment (hits) and fight back. We find it in those who dedicate themselves to others, in those who seek spiritual light, in those who explore the universe or the mind. We find it in those who are engaged in helping others.

Ignavi coram morte quidem animam trahunt, audaces autem illam non saltem advertunt. The cowards agonize about death, the brave don't even notice it. Julius Caesar

SELF CONSCIOUSNESS AND STRENGTH Audaces fortuna iuvat Fortune favors the brave

It takes courage to stop doing what your culture has prepared for you, to think as the mainstream and decide by yourself what is valuable. 121


Even a plant or an insect is immersed in this journey called life, but, unlike us, they can not reflect on their self, or on the trip they are in. Whether or not this is better or worse for them, we do not know. There are pros and cons. As for me, since this opportunity was given to me only once, I want to exploit it. If we are given an opportunity to do so, we must not squander. It's a possibility that not everybody exploits: to develop full selfconsciousness about who you are, to ask your soul what meaning you would like to give to your existence. This regards also communication with others. Communicating about what? What content deserves your communication efforts and energies? What contents generate communication pleasure? What conversations intoxicate you? And how long are you willing to keep them in your life? A good “communicational diet” is a very good tool to start with. This means talking only with people you can share something meaningful with you, talking about what is important or fosters your energies. And let go empty talk and empty people. It’s a diet that can be done day after day. In other words, the desire to give sense and meaning to your trip requires action. To make a positive journey there are many positive things to learn. Some are easy, some are difficult. I think it's good to learn to start from small things. For example, getting up in the morning. If you stay in bed for a few minutes before hurrying into the day, you can stay in an Alphagenic State (a state in between sleep and awakening, a mental bridge). You can tune up with your dreams and what they wanted to tell you. You can focus about your day and priorities and do some mental 122


focusing. You can feel in your whole body the "sacredness" of being alive. After some practice, this will not be just a vague feeling, but a skill - a specific skill or mental ability, something we can learn, and we can develop and practice. Even this micro-skills gives us a great opportunity: to give a "color" at the beginning of a day and try to make of it a very special beginning of the day, whatever is going to happen in that day. And if we apply this attitude to the whole life, great things can emerge. It all starts from the daily act of waking up … In those minutes… right there… we shall begin to pay homage to a trip that we were allowed to do, and has been denied to many. This gift is called life. Daniele Trevisani

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FOCUSING EXERCISES Exercises inspired to the chapter contents, with the purpose of increasing focusing, self-awareness. They can be conducted both in team coaching sessions and in one-to-one session. EXERCISE 1 - SELF ANALYSIS OF PERSONAL STRONG POINTS

Describe at least three characteristics of yourself that you think are your “strong points”, and why you consider them positive, what they produce in your life

1

2

3

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EXERCISE 2 - SELF ANALYSIS OF PERSONAL WEAK POINTS

Describe at least three characteristics of yourself that you think are your “weak points”, and why you consider them as negative, what difficulties they produced and are producing in your life

1

2

3

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EXERCISE 3 - DEFINING WHAT A RESULT IS FOR YOU

Describe at least three goals or objectives or personal characteristics that your culture indicated you (or still indicates) as a “result” or “desired and positive expectation”

-

-

-

Now, try to focus on your personal wishes, and set 3 material results and 3 immaterial results for your future. 126


Do not consider them as mandatory, this is just as a mental exercise to improve goal focusing

Material result or goal (and deriving benefit)

Immaterial result or goal (and deriving benefit)

Considerations arising from the exercise and practical implications for the future, goal setting, leadership and personal choices

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EXERCISE 4 - IDENTIFY YOUR SITUATIONAL RESPONSE

Describe one situation in which you felt that the emotional climate in the group was not positive and what you did. Would you do the same?



Situation



What I did



Would you do the same? What would you change if history could go back?

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EXERCISE 5 - LEFT PREFRONTAL CORTEX PERCEPTION

Try to observe anything positive in your environment, where you are now, and in you, or in the path provided

Positive aspects observed

Ps. Take note of the “return to Right Prefrontal Cortex Mode”, negative perception, when it happened and what triggered it

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EXERCISE 6 - IDENTIFY A TOXIC COMMUNICATION CASE THAT HAPPENED FOR REAL

Identify a case or situation in which you think that a leader did not act in a manner that contributed to achieving a goal. Try to describe what you would do instead

Situation

Negative moves observed or wrong messages

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EXERCISE 7 - BUILDING AS LEADERSHIP EXERCISE - LEADERSHIP AND TEAM COMMUNICATIONS

Use the material indicated by the trainer or facilitator and follow the instructions in “building” the desired object (video, pictures etc.) Look at which “communication moves” or styles emerged and if they where beneficial or detrimental in order to achieve the goal Positive moves or aspects observed

Negative moves or aspects observed

Effects of the positive moves

Effects of the negative moves

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LOOKING FORWARD Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Who will watch the watchers themselves?

The world is full of people who judge you. But sometimes those judges are really morally corrupted. Think if you were to be judged by Stalin or Hitler, would you like to be approved. Isn't it time to have a new sort of Universal Judgment? This means to confront ourselves against a Universal Law of Life. Life proceeds towards improvement and not deterioration. We make a long story short, we evolved from mono-cellular algae into fishes and then primates and than humans, and probably into something even more sophisticated in the future. In any of these evolutions, nature’s forces promote those who take care of their children and their habitat. We should always keep this Universal Law in mind. While we're on the go in our evolution, a question arises. What would you like to say to have done, at the end of the trip of your personal evolution? How do you measure the degree to which you feel pleased with you? Are you sure you use the right metrics? In other words, when you will look back at your life, what would you like to say? What will make you feel full of honor? And I’m not talking about what you '"have" materially, but what you tried to do. What causes you tried to serve. The majority of people live in the darkness. The darkness of a lack of direction, the darkness of a labile sense of life, lost, confused. 132


GO BEYOND YOUR CULTURE… OR “WHEN SHEEP IN THE FLOCK START TO ASK THE PASTOR WHERE THEY ARE GOING” What is the darkness? Darkness is blinding you within a room whose walls have been built by others. And chain yourself in that room. We can break the chains. What chains? There are so many. We all have some. I will mention just a few: the chain of the culture that tells you what to eat and what not to eat, what to wear and how not to dress. A culture that tells you what to think and what is not good thinking. You are born into a culture that offers a ready-made religion, an ethnic group in which you should identify, and even shows you clearly the "bad guys" to hate. Then you think about it, and you realize that many bad guys are not bad (just look at the first movies about the American Indians against the Cowboys, where the Indians were portrayed as the villains and the Cowboys as the heroes, which is a misrepresentation, at minimum.) If you are lucky, you slowly discover that many of the “good guys” are scattered across the planet and you do not even know them. And if you are lucky, you also discover that the "goodness" takes place not necessarily in physical beings, but in ways of thinking, and sometimes you realize it when it’s too late. The chain of self-castration does the rest: self-castration happens if you think of not being "physically strong enough" and that training will not help; or if you think of not being "mentally strong enough" to do certain things and that a Mental Training could do nothing. It is reinforced by listening to people who attempt to demoralize you or try to convince you that you should not believe in yourself. This prevents even the attempt to give themselves the opportunity . We need a shot of pride. Start to think that you can do most of the things you cannot do now if you just want and train for them. You can 133


work on it. You can train your body and mind. You can earn the skills and expertise to enhance the body and the mind and do so much that you will be amazed.

Tu ne cede malis sed contra audentior ito Yield not to misfortunes, but advance all the more boldly against them

Being weak is not useful to anyone. Years of miseducation of what peace really is, have confused it with weakness, with the courtesy of accepting abuse. Pure fiction. The force, when directed towards the right causes and purposes like defense of the weak, training and education, is a value. As long as we have time, until we have this gift, as long as nature allows us, we shall use this rare privilege of using our force to empower ourselves even more and so to achieve even higher an noble goals. The chain of negative thoughts, lies, falsehoods, trains western people every day to stay in the enclosure. And this happens in a very tricky way. Bombarded by the media, children learn to see the worst side of life. They are bombarded by ads and movies that show impossible models and the most stupid and unbelievable behavior, and this prevents good growth. Then, for some of us, there is a sacred moment, when, as adults, we realize the lies that have surrounded us and seek our own personal path towards truth and towards mental cleaning. We understand that we have been subjected to a "communicational diet" made of plenty of false and diverted messages. Only then can we 134


can start taking control of our "communicational diet", and choose what we want to learn and know. Eating good things is the first principle of every healthy creature. For the mind, it’s not different. The old Latin schools had a motto on which we should reflect, in order to understand whether we wish to be a part of the people that use reasoning and awareness, or being a sheep in the flock, not knowing where the pastor is taking us. Choose if you like to stay in the flock. Choose carefully.

Aut disce aut discede Either learn or leave

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ANCIENT WISDOMS Ancient wisdoms, which have been lost, had long understood that we are like the fruit of a seed. We are what others have grown. So, we have for ourselves the task of sowing and not to throw garbage on the next generations. Among the American Indians, an Indian sage, Oren Lyons, Chief of the Onondaga, writes:21

"We are looking ahead , as is one of the first mandates given us as chiefs, to make sure and to make every decision that we make relate to the welfare and well-being of the seventh generation to come. . . ." "What about the seventh generation? Where are you taking them? What will they have?”22

We can learn a lot from this ancient wisdom. For example, the way we will feel in seven days also depends on how we will start to feed ourselves today. The projects that we will be working on in seven months, must be thought now, otherwise they will never occur by chance. What will we be in seven years depends on some choices that we can start doing

21 Wikipedia online, 2012, voce “Seven generation sustainability”, Wikipedia Foundation. 22 An Iroquois Perspective. Pp. 173, 174 in American Indian Environments: Ecological Issues in Native American History. Vecsey C, Venables RW (Editors). Syracuse University Press, New York

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today. And seven years, arrive fast. And yet, if the rulers of the most powerful nations would think as the Iroquois, we could easily cease to destroy mountains to build galleries, to make the streets of asphalt and petrol-powered cars, and we will all soon travel on flying vehicles powered by hydrogen, sun, or other renewable sources. The technology is here. Will and wisdom are not. The Agenda Setting studies on mass communication show that populations think about what the media discuss. Agenda-setting theory23 describes the ability of the media to influence the salience of topics on the public agenda. And when the media spend time on how a Hollywood star got up today, or what brand he/she wears, we will not go very far. Flying cars are not in the public agenda despite the enormous time wasted waiting in lines, and the quantity of soil stolen to build streets. Flying cars that do not pollute are feasible. They can be manufactured with a global agreement among car manufacturers, practically now, today. We can draw all the needed energy from sun, wind, sea, and live in peace with each other. It is possible, completely and utterly feasible. The world only lacks the wisdom and the vision to do so. World rulers lack the will to make a real leap in the concept of humanity. All around us, there is an enormous lack of courage to make bold choices.

23 McCombs, M; Reynolds, A (2002). "News influence on our pictures of the world". Media effects: Advances in theory and research.

McCombs, M; Shaw, D (1972). "The agenda-setting function of mass media". Public Opinion Quarterly 36 (2).

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The most innovative proposals to draw energy from sunlight, water and soil, to build new transportation concepts, are condemned as utopian dreams. We continue to spend money in the past instead of investing for the future. Ignorance and cowardice are the mothers of all sins. Innovative ideas are considered “strange” and closed for centuries.

Damnant quodnon intelligunt They condemn what they do not understand

Selfishness prevents world rulers to think about the world we want to prepare for our kids. The priority of the “mainstream” politician has become to find out what he/she can steal during their mandate, or whether to provide benefits to his family or his political clan and financers. Selfishness is a chain of the mind. And anyone can get this illness. The chains are very numerous, but they can be broken. You can live in the light, defeat the dark. You can fight against the darkness of "non-lived lives" in which people are prisoners of social masks, lies, fake roles, external appearance. In this world, too many people do not leave any mark except a strip of poison or some toxic trace. That's not how it should go. The road to truth and fullness, however, must be practiced. It is full of obstacles, the first of which is the "fear of light" after being in the dark for years. Purity is scary because it dazzles. We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light Plato 138


BELIEVING Carpent tua poma nepotes Your descendants will pick your fruit Virgilio

There are things that need to be done just to bring a positive example. One of this is to endure against difficulties. When you show that you are fighting for something positive there is a further layer of meaning: it is not just something you do to get personal results, you are working for the whole humanity. Bringing this kind of example is useful also and mainly to give a message to young people around you. Believing in the resources of the self, and actively search them, is similar to look for a treasure. Believing in the very possibility of reinforce our resources, is one of the main roads to ennoble the meaning of life. A journey of personal growth can be applied at different levels: who is looking for performance, and wants to go all the way, wants to know "where he/she can get." It is also important for those who love research, as noble purpose of being human. Many of us do not feel satisfied by our material culture, and want to find a way towards a fuller life, metaphorically, a way to the light. The Latin Training System traces back some old wisdom of the Latin Culture merging it with Eastern cultures and modern psychology, since nowadays only a “holistic” approach can generate a research without barriers. 139


A search for a higher self is good also for who has muted his/her internal communication systems even to the point of not asking him/herself questions anymore. Should we give up only because it’s difficult?

Sometimes the winner is simply a dreamer who never gave up Jim Morrison

So.... try to dream of how you want to be and transform your life, then work on it every day, miracles are built! I strongly believe that the western world and landscape of Self Growth and Human Potential and related fields are full of charlatans, thieves, swindlers, hucksters. One of the main common characteristics is that they provide recipes like "10 magic rules for..." and any technique is sold as fast, easy and magic. No hypothesis testing, no scientific thinking and lots of stolen money. Latins believed that it takes time to generate something good, something that lasts. They believed that books need to be read several times, if you really want to get in contact with the writer’s mind, not “skimmed” as modern Universities tend to promote. Quod cito acquiritur cito perit What is quickly gained, is quickly lost

What you want to learn has to do with inner growth and deep understanding, rather than on how many books are visible on a person’s shelf. How many of them have been fully understood?

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Fallaces sunt rerum species The appearances of things are deceptive

Latin wisdom is about personal growth, starting from any position. A journey of personal growth makes sense for those who live in a state of suffering and wish to look to a better future, as well as those who live in total wellness, using this state as a condition from which to jump even further. When we refine the view, we find a horizon full of new stars. Personal growth can touch a specific field (e.g., sports or work), the material world, or the spiritual frontier. It is the common denominator that counts: the rejection of a given locked condition, the will to feed the sacred fire of passion. The struggle towards the light, and greater existential freedom, is the center of our research. Everything can be improved. This is the secret. Self-consciousness is the ability to question and find the keys to exit from the prison of what your culture has set, as the limits of your exploration. Never force yourself to suffocate your desires. Never end your days inside a country, a culture or a company where you do not feel any value in common. Your real country is a psychological space, not a territory. Once again, his ancient Latin motto points it out clearly.

Ubi bene, ibi patria Where one feels good, there is one's country

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YOU CAN DREAM, YOU CAN ACT Let’s decide something immediately. You can explore. You can fight. If you feel that you would like to run but you cannot, let's start with some good news: the glue that locks you may be dissolved. This glue takes form of sadness, boredom, anxiety, suffocated dreams, erroneous selfimages, and lack of an inspirational self-image, distortion of what the “ideal self” can really be. Whenever we move towards something that gives us energy and passion, a battle for a good cause is going on. If you feel that you have already achieved a lot, but you wonder if you can venture further, I have more good news. This "beyond" is so vast, that you would need tens of lifetimes to explore it. So, we have wide meadows to ride. It is the desire of awakening against stasis, the desire to fly to a higher life, a life spent in conscious acting, working actively to improve something as intangible as our conscience. The commitment that you enter in this path of personal growth has its own value and sacredness. Love for life can bring you to action much more that the search for money or any other physical goal. Amor Vincit Omnia Love conquers all

WHAT IS YOUR TRUE VALUE? If we take what a person has, and we distinguish (1) what he/she has personally achieved, from (b) what others have given or left to him/her (cultural heritage, money, houses, material goods, gifts), we get closer to the true self-value of the person, to his/her true human depth. Your true value is measured in your commitment to the 142


emancipation of the self from falsity, in your effort to a battle for life. What you get from your struggle, is the award of your emancipation. Consciousness gives value, consciousness awakens us. Consciousness becomes the light that points to the fact that we have a potential to explore, and that what we do for others and for ourselves is not useless. It is useful because it ennobles our being. A journey of personal growth is always a trip towards the nobility of mind, towards values and concepts, never a simple patchwork of techniques. Being noble does not require unnecessary and ridiculous titles, being noble in spirit and mind, requires a cause to pursue. The personal development and self-consciousness of man is a form of light, openness, enlightenment, emancipation, always a place of pilgrimage in those who are wondering about who we are, where we are heading, how far we can go. For what is it worth living? How often do you wonder if there is something worthwhile, something to fight for, something that deserves your best energies? I have never found an enlightened person who does not ask him/herself these questions. More often, when I am inside a company or a bar, and I look at people’s eyes, I see walking dead. If you do not ask these questions, this does not mean that you are not worth at all. Maybe you have not yet discovered to be worth, you have not yet been awakened. Why do your days unfold in this way? Are there alternatives to how you're living? Do you feel that your life is useful to someone? Are you willing to take risks?

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FIGHT AND THINK AS A FREE SPIRIT In candore decus There is honor in sincerity

The strangest thing of life is that we do not really know why we came to this world. Many do not reflect on the fact that we have become creatures able to reflect on the wonders of the universe, the origin of the stars and atoms, to look deep into the larger universe of space, and the microscopic universe, and discuss the origin of matter, space and time. What is a soul, if not self-reflection? Why, among billions of galaxies and planets, most of which are dead or deadly, at a certain moment of time you were born? What meaning can you can ascribe to this miracle? Yes. You have to decide what meaning to give to the fact that you are alive. Do not let any religion or culture bring you a “ready to eat” solution. Think, search, reflect, and be grateful. The fact that there are no easy or satisfactory answers does not reduce the power of these questions. Questions are our wealth, even before the answers.

Qui rogat, non errat (One) who asks, doesn't err

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"who cares". In some, these questions trigger doubts as dim candles flaming, but then they create fear, anxiety and unease. It takes energy to keep searching into the unknown and not to fear the unknown. Many end up stopping the reasoning, judging their thoughts as stupid utopians, idealists and philosophers. Then you start to think that what matters is the bank account, mortgage, car, and slowly, you adapt and become one in the crowd of non-thinkers. In this existential illness, the real reason to exist becomes to change the car or get the latest model of mobile phone. The life-fulfillment goal becomes to retire. Can you understand how sick is the idea of living a whole life working with disgust, hoping to get to the point to retire? Those who wake up for a moment, are labeled as deviant, or lonely and strange, and are likely soon to give up, to let the currents carry them like everyone else. Young people are inundated with media and programs that nourish the neurons of apathy and kill those of active exploration of the various and different ways of existing. If you're sad: how did you become like this? Do you lie to yourself? Did perhaps someone induce you to think that you should not fight for your thoughts and values, that there is not an alternative to become a “living ghost”, and that life is just this? There are alternative routes. So come on, let’s explore them. And, if you're happy, great! Let’s use that energy to go on and on, and help other to stand up. If you have not asked yourself yet these questions you can start now. If you have been fascinated by these issues for some time, this is even better. We will have several things on which to reason together.

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Aquila non captat muscas The eagle doesn't capture flies (don't sweat the small things)

You are like an eagle, as an eagle you should fly high.

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THE QUALITY OF PERSONAL LIFE EXPERIENCE

LIVING AT A HIGHER LEVEL… ARE YOU GETTING ENOUGH HAPPINESS? Mira quaedam in cognoscendo suavitas et delectatio There is a certain wonderful sweetness and delight in gaining knowledge

The cycle of birth, life, death, regards everyone. It is touching us like the wind that lifts a seed, makes it travel, and deposits it. If we are committed to honoring this cycle, our seed will grow up and generate growth and also fruits and new seeds. But this seed must learn to fly, fly high, fly at a higher level than the average. You live at a higher level every time you feel a connection with values and thoughts that affect the spiritual world rather than just the material world. It is amazing how much people are impressed and take into account what car a person has, what house, what watch or TV, instead of how many books the person has read or written, or if he/she does something good for others in life, or not.

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Non teneas aurum totum quod splendet ut aurum Do not take as gold everything that shines like gold

You understand real life values usually when it’s too late. The revenge of gaining ownership on our personal life and lifemeaning must begin now. We do not have to wait until the candle stops.

RETARGETING MENTAL ENERGY (RME) Living at a higher level means to learn to "think" and direct the thought toward higher levels as soon as possible. This process is labeled in the Human Potential Modeling (HPM Method) as Re-centering Mental Energy (RME). To do a good RME practice you need to get to the point in which most of your time is spent on things you really believe as important. Without RME, people get lost in life and waste their lives completely, as a bird who tries to get somewhere but flies around having lost any reference point. Before applying a good RME practice, we need to admit that we are very often confused. Our time is out of focus, our priorities are not sharp. It means to realize (mental awareness) when you feel confused and seized by the multitude of messages that surround you. Most of the people respond to this confusion by absorbing it and becoming confused and lost. Their wish and the way they spend time is doing jobs they do not want to do, and waist the remaining time doing lotteries, sweepstakes, watch TV, talk gossip, and never put in question why they are alive, why they exist and what higher process they are part of.

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FIND A LIVING GYM FOR YOUR SOUL I coached international athletes in Combat Sports and Martial Arts, helping them to live their decisive encounters in a different and better way. This meant living close to them until the next level was reached, removing the anxiety and creating a strong sense of joy and "celebration" for the fighting event. One might ask what the usefulness of Combat Sports or Martial Arts is. The answer is that they are real gyms for the soul, where people can learn to fight not just physically but mainly to stand up and learn to pursue their goals. The physical aspect is really only the packaging of a much deeper process of fighting against self-fears and learning to fight for something you want. In a world dominated by cowards, this is not a silly learning process. Once the fighting spirit enters a person, it’s there for any fight. Fight for values, fight for justice, fight for knowledge.

Laborare pugnare parati sumus To work or to fight, we are ready

People who learn to fight also learn to cultivate personal physical energies, and mental energies. And, most important, they learn that they must earn their strength through hard work, continuity and good mental disposition and lifestyle. You learn that nobody can do the work that you should do, and you must conquer your destiny without hoping that someone builds it up for you. You learn that your body is important and therefore you must treat it wisely and respect it. These are life lessons that no school can teach. 149


Sine timore aut favore Without Fear or Favor

Vincit qui patitur Who endures wins

I also coach people that are not athletes, like managers and normal people who are not satisfied about their lives or their professional status and want to improve their quality of life, emotional state and condition. The first objective in these cases is to "relocate" their attention on a higher level, with powerful effects on their professional life and their life experience. This implies using both Communication Training (learning to communicate differently) and Mental Training (develop new mental skills, such as visualization, positive thinking, focusing). People who learn to retarget mental energy, also achieve greater selfconfidence, greater awareness of the value of their time, greater ability to concentrate and at the same time greater ability to relax when they want to do it. I am committed to start with very simple "instructions" up to the point when a clients become "masters" of human functioning, making the journey from mechanical movements into spiritual growth (the real Mastery). Working for this goal, means to bring people to live fully. In all these cases I treated, whether in personal coaching, professional or sports coaching, I have always found a constant: people that do not feel well or do not perform well are using the wrong 150


yardsticks, they use parameters of the "lower world" instead those of the "upper world". For example, higher parameter for an athlete are “how well do you feel during the training”, “how much do you feel every movement”, “do you feel the training as a gift from life”, “how grateful are you to be among those who can use their body at this level instead of being handicapped or even average”… and lower parameters are things as weight lifted, hits given or taken, time per mile, and so on. The lower (material) results will arrive automatically if the person is in contact with the higher level, the immaterial world of living energies. When you learn that – before the coaching - you were using distorted meters, the shock is strong. After the initial shock, people realize that there is some brighter light to pursue in life. You can "re-center" yourself on what is really important. You can become more able to focus, and look for the deep meaning of things and find it.

THE GET-READY MINDSET Si vis pacem, para bellum If you want peace get ready for war

"Therefore, he who wishes peace should prepare war; he who desires victory, should carefully train his soldiers; he who wants favorable results, should fight relying on skill, not on chance." Roman military writer Publius Flavius Vegetius Renatus

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Contrary to what one might think, this famous Latin sentence is not pro-war. It’s a common phrase, whose meaning is: hope for the best and get ready for the worst. It recognizes that universal peace is unfortunately still a long way far. And yet, our minds must do their utmost to build a future of peace. “If you want peace”… Peace is what you want, but you have to earn it. Only once peace will be a global reality, true human development will start. False pacifism rejects the war at all costs leaving the weak unprotected, allowing despots to massacre their own people and kill innocent victims. This fake pacifism is just a form of disgraceful cowardice, the worst kind of falsehood. If this form of pacifism had prevailed in history, now we would all be ruled by Hitler’s dictatorship. Peace is a great goal, but it must be achieved. We must recognize fake prophets, we must continue to fight our battle for truth. We must live for a higher purpose than purchasing a brand seen on an ad. Consequently, our time will experience a strong recentering. Once we understand that life-meaning deserves attention, as a process, we start to question its quality, we start to ask what contribution we can offer, and we begin to reflect on the fruits that would be nice to taste, and the seeds to leave. The process of Re-centering Mental Energies talks to people who may have reached some material life-result that many would find great (fame, money, success) - externally full, but internally empty. And when a little voice inside says that things do not go just fine, and those results are fake, listen to it. No external object can replace the deep inner emptiness. It’s better to die for a dream than to die in bed without trying to fight for it.

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Memento audere semper Remember to always dare Gabriele D'Annunzio, Italian Poet, Writer and Soldier

SEMANTIC SOUL: THE SEARCH FOR MEANING OF LIFE “I walked around the block twice, passed 200 people and failed to see a human being.” Charles Bukowski - “A rain of women”

You don’t want to be one of those 200, right? When you encounter an empty soul, you definitely see a crater inside that person, and staying with these people eats up your energy. The emptiness of the soul is a common illness. It comes when we feel no more sense in what we do, or are filled with lies and end up believing them. Humans are sense-hungry. The real meaning of life is the search of knowledge and selfawareness. There are very specific high-level meanings in life: 1. Understanding why we have become self-aware organisms. 2. Understand how we can raise our individual self-awareness and wisdom. 3. Increase the self-awareness of the entire human species and the collective search for a common purpose. 4. Actively look for ways and tools to improve again and again our self-development, our full potential as individuals and as species. 153


5. Explore and understand the unknown, within us and in the universe. 6. Nourish and take care of ourselves, loving ourselves. 7. Nourish and take care of others, loving others and helping them to achieve well being and their potential. 8. Seek the truth at any level and at any cost, despite any religious constriction, beyond ideologies and belief systems, and social barriers. 9. Expand

our

capacity

to

communicate

and

break

the

incommunicability chains and limitations that blocks humans from advancing. 10. Continue our search of higher ideals and improve human condition. If you feel a connection to a higher purpose, your energies will light up as a miracle. Nothing we can buy, hold or "have" makes us human. Who is trying to give meaning to his/her life often hears a voice, saying that most of the world you see is fake, empty, falsely filled, full of sick values and sick behaviors. You don’t want to silence this voice. This voice also talks to those who feel fully satisfied, but are curious to see where else they can go, to go beyond the know territories, to search if there are other worlds to explore and other areas of life, other resources, and other stages, still not even thought. The emptiness of the soul is not permanent, is a pathological condition that is treatable. The cure is often very close; the cure is knowledge, staying in proximity to wise people, good reading, a journey, and the experiences of life close to people who suffer. Most importantly, it requires the growth of personal energies, the fullness of body and mind energies, fuel for any spiritual trip. 154


PERSONAL ENERGIES FOR THE LIFE JOURNEY AND SELF-EXPRESSION We should not be hypocrites. Without personal resources, the trip will be short. And tiring. We should therefore start from the basic principle: no personal energies, no real journey. The quality of life-experience is absolutely related to personal energies. If you feel plenty of inner energies, you will have a full and dense life, rich of sentiments and you will help others. In this condition, you cannot feel useless. If you do not feel the burst of energies inside of you, your ride will be exhausting, every step painful, and you will even start asking yourself if it’s worth getting up in the morning. A good enhancement of bodily and psychological resources of the person will boost the whole journey of personal growth. The model I developed - HPM (Human Potential Modeling) - has exactly the objective of the amplification of personal resources. Who wants to start thinking seriously about his/her personal resources needs to deal with some basic concepts. Here are a few:



Self-expression (capacity to express themselves), a good coaching must help in finding those personal activities, professional activities or “playing fields” on which one can express his/her attitudes. Expressing yourself is good, where focused on personal values it is even better. Self-expression needs an application field. What would you like to express? 155


When? In what areas of life? And in what other unknown areas of life or activities could you find some new treasure? •

Self-realization: the time of making budgets will come sooner or later. You'll wonder if it you feel realized, if you feel satisfied with what you did or tried to do. You'll wonder if you have any remorse for not having tried.

•

Self-consciousness: the degree of knowledge of our inner processes, and awareness of the path we you are doing. If our life was a movie, what character are you playing? And in what part of the movie are you now?

•

Quality of Experiencing: to wonder about the quality of your day is not fool or stupid. It’s fool not to do it. We should check every morning, every afternoon, every evening, how we are living, what sensations we are living. And yet, become more aware of what values and measures we are using to judge whether our experience is good or bad.

In a journey of personal growth, one of the first actions, or "must do", is to evaluate what parameters you are using in judging your life and the quality of your life. Do you use the Horse Power of your car as an indicator? Do you use the number of friends you can count on? Do you use the number of lovers? Do you use the number of books you've read? Do you rely on the contributions that you're creating to science, or humanity? Do you build your self-judgment based on your physical shape? And if you work in a company, do you use the trimester balance or the number and quality of innovations that the company produces? Do you use the yardstick of popularity? In practice, what measurement do 156


you use to evaluate yourself? And if that is not enough, I ask you if you ever talk about this with someone, or if you just leave this topic to your inner dialogue, or if you do not even deal with it. The average dialogue between persons is made of thousands of words devoted to most idiot themes, issues that have no real significance. Our daily conversations are full of false problems that do not even have the value of a worm that crawls. People escape deep reasoning as a plague.

Think of all the millions of people who live together even if they do not like it, that hate their job and are scared by the idea of losing it: it's no wonder that their faces have the look they have Charles Bukowski – Shakespeare never did this

We need to understand quickly how to measure our achievements and those of others. We need to understand if these "measures" are genuine or fake and should be thrown away, if they are only artificial social constructs, or have strong inner values. You must realize if your reasoning is a mere assimilation absorbed from others, and who gave them the right to inculcate ideas in you without letting you decide if they were good or not. As an adult, ask yourself which ones are real and which are false, and - for those you don’t feel yours - try to replace them with something more productive and "true".

Look people in the face. See them well. 157


And ask yourself if a soul shines from their faces Daniele Trevisani

THE EXPERIENTIAL FILTER (QUALITY OF EXPERIENCE) To analyze self-expression and self-realization we need to pose ourselves the problem of Quality of Experience, a concept already identified by Cantril24: the ability to give value to our experience, to feel the value of the things that we are doing, to understand what makes for us an experience interesting or less (the "value attributes" we pay attention to). A path of personal growth has a value in itself. If so, we are already at a good point. At a great point I would say! According to which inner parameters do you judge an experience full of value or frustrating? The same gesture – such as lifting a weight, dancing or hitting a bag (punching bag), or gardening - for someone can be a nuisance, or worse, hateful, and for others a pleasure, pure joy. The joy of lifting weight, and the heavier it is, the better it is. The joy of fighting on a ring and sweating until you have give everything you had. Also the study can be experienced as a painful duty, or pleasure of learning. When someone studies only to get rid of exams and get a piece of paper, any hour spent will be painful. If the study is moved by the

24.

Cantril, Hadley (1950).The "why" of man's experience, Oxford, England: Macmillan

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curiosity of knowing, the joy of knowing, everything changes. There is too much pressure around in forecasting everything, and not enough pleasure in doing the things you do. This is an ancient Latin wisdom that we should learn again and again.

Quid sit futurum cras, fuge quaerere Do not ask what tomorrow brings. (Horace)

To obtain joy out of actions, you must “feel”, you must “experience” what you are doing and not just aim at get it done. Everything is subject to our filter of experiencing. Any activity becomes an undue hardship for those who are unconnected to the flow of experience or “the flow”) that activity produces. Anyone who has learned to "listen", to “feel” this flow, learned to tune on the "waves" of sensation, and enjoys the experience completely. Taking care of a miniature tree can be called stupidity (a waste of time), or art (Bonsai) according to the pleasure that actions produce, and we can learn to "feel" the power of intentions, and the pleasantness of actions. For a wrestler or fighter, the joy of movement prevails, and the effort itself becomes enjoyable. For a bodybuilder, the feeling of "muscle pumps" generated from work with the "Iron" (weights) is something invaluable, a real drug that makes you feel good. Playing with a child can be a stressful time, or the most beautiful thing in the world. The same goes for cooking, or washing a car. The same applies to the search of personal growth and human development. 159


Dealing with our own personal growth can become a pleasant art, or we might instead consider it as an obligation. A university exam can become something that you just want to pass as fast as possible, or something that is part of your process of understanding the world and increasing knowledge. Any form of study can become an ongoing adventure into higher and higher spheres of self-consciousness and knowledge.

TASTE THE MOMENTS, LOVE ANY SINGLE FRAME No athlete will ever make great strides if he/she does not learn to enjoy every workout like a fruit to eat, a flower to smell, a precious stone found along the way. Life is composed of “frames”. When we learn to connect ourselves to any single frame, life will become filled up with sensations. When the athlete learns to love every single workout, any movement, any gesture, the results will come. Training is the real fruit, even before its results become verifiable in the race or competition. The real challenge is to live each workout as sacred and magical. This is also true in business and organizations.

FINDING “FRAMES” When you manage a company or your profession, you should break it down to all the single significant frames that you need to perform. No manager will ever get results from a meeting or a sale if he/she does not learn to understand, master and enjoy the conversational dynamics occurring in a meeting or a sale. Any piece of conversation is composed of frames. 160


The conversation is the juice, the consequences of speaking and the results will come later. In the training field, no trainer or professor will ever be such if he/she enters the room with the mission of "get the lesson done" or follow the program bureaucratically, rather than thinking of generating something significant acts of true learning in the class or course. No leader will ever be such if he/she has any illusions that the gallons or rank, power or money, will automatically provide true respect and admiration. FIG. 2 - EXAMPLE OF COMMUNICATION FRAMES Flow of Interaction 

Opening 

Body 

Reciprocal recognition

Listening

Tentative solutions

Talking Points

Sum Up

Impression Frame Framesetting Frame

Frame

Frame

Closing 

Frame

Impressions Management

Archetype in use

Frame

Frame

Next steps

Frame

Identify specific communication frames and sub-frames

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LIFE FRAMES, AND THE META-CAPACITY OF “DEALING WITH THE UNEXPECTED” Life is composed of Frames, as a movie is composed of “times” and every part has specific frames. In human relationships, the same happens. Except that the “timeline” of the movie cannot be forecasted. This brings us to the ability of dealing with the unexpected. No lover will ever be such if he/she cannot connect with the sensations he/she is living and those that others feel. The mechanical factor and the emotional flow are very different. There can be no manual of instructions about how to “love” a person that appears in your life, or “love” a concept you are not ready for, or deal with a problem that has never been encountered yet. Same happens on being parents. No parent will ever be a good father or mother if dominated be the syndrome "to graduate my son" or "to marry his daughter" as the ultimate and almost unique goals, losing every single moment of their child's growth. As self-consciousness of a person increases, and the parameters used by weighting what is valuable and what is not change, it gradually emerges a new pleasure for a new form of travel: the path of discovery, conscious and voluntary, of personal potential and hidden resources. The need for structure and certainty decreases and the unexpected becomes a part of the game. It's good for the soul to explore alternative concepts of life, to actively build a better future for us, for people who are dear to us, and for the whole human community. Our possibility of evolutions is huge and still little known, even to ourselves. The difficulties exist and we don’t have to deny them, just consider them as challenges.

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Non est ad astra mollis e terris via The road from earth to the stars is not easy

Self-consciousness, and the degree of self-consciousness, then, is one of the basic points from which we want to start. If you do not wonder where you stand on your journey, and if you do not realize that you are traveling, further reasoning loses value. But do not look for fast answers. The answers come slowly, gradually increasing in focus as the flow of consciousness increases, and energy and resources rise. Life frames are the parts of our journey. A journey is open to anyone who believes in the enormous human potential that is still to be achieved. It is a positive journey that for skeptics seems utopian. We know that human beings are imperfect creatures, but - despite all the limitations and huge loads that each of us carries on his shoulders the human being is in some moments, magic moments – capable of enormous insights, enormous expression, and able to open doors you never thought possible.

It raises the deepest chasms only those who love to dream Daniele Trevisani

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LIFE CHOICES AND DEGREES OF FREEDOM. A FREE SOUL IS ABLE TO FREE OTHERS To free our soul is the highest of any goals anybody can dream of. Many people change country, change job, change spouse, change anything, but cannot change what they “are” inside. Your soul is what you are forced to bring with you, your “level of soul-freedom” is everywhere you might go.

Animum debes mutare, non caelum You must change your disposition, not your sky Seneca

So, it’s good to start thinking that a positive change is an act of liberation, and must be something deeper than changing a t-shirt. For many generations, if your father was a farmer you would became a farmer. There was need of you in the camps. You could not do much about it. You could have the talent to become a doctor or a scientist, but you did not have the "experiential freedom" to try. Your life choices were not many: only one. This is still happening in many areas of the planet. You are born poor, stay poor, you are born from addicted parents with Aids, and you become addicted and will probably get Aids. 164


Those who escape this game are just a small part of the world population. If you are not in this condition of slavery, you can enjoy the miracle of having some degree of experiential freedom. The real and essential strategy for generating positive improvement is to make a “life-gym” of constant attempt of self-improvement. Improvement in the way you eat, improvement in the way you exercise, in the way you practice some spiritual exercises, in the way you feel connected to a universal energy and try to make a better world.

Parvis imbutus tentabis grandia tutus When you are steeped in little things, you shall safely attempt great things. Motto of Barnard Castle School, sometimes translated as "Once you have accomplished small things, you may attempt great ones safely".

You are a privileged, whether you realize it or not. And who has privileges has to be grateful and try to do something for those less fortunate, for the planet for human civilization, even in tiny small actions. You have some degrees of freedom on where to conduct your life? Then, you should make good use of them. Do not waste this gift, since others don’t have it. It's good to think that freedom is associated with growth, development, in many different fields: physical, mental and psychological, in sports, cultural, intellectual, or spiritual domains. A free soul is able to liberate others. By the example, by the word, by opening people’s eyes. Even one single exposure to an enlightened information or demonstration, can start the “positive change process”. 165


It’s an enormous opportunity, and we should not waste it.

Parva scintilla saepe magnam flamam excitat The small sparkle often initiates a large flame

If we want to get serious in the pursuit of liberty and search of our potential, we have to cover the whole distance, avoiding easy shortcuts, which often are nothing more than ridicule lies, and traps. A journey of personal growth opens up new possibilities. You must welcome in your life everyone who believes in the idea that you can try to enhance the positive sides of being human. What one sees and hears about mankind defects, on the news, in daily life, is often disgusting, and does little honor to mankind. That is not a reason for giving up. Every liberated soul has the power to improve humanity, even in the smallest village of the poorest town, in any institution, in any family.

Potest ex casa magnus vir exire A great man can come from a hut (Seneca)

DUST AND SHADOW

Ex nihilo nihil fit 166


Nothing comes from nothing

Supposedly a quote by the Roman philosopher Lucretius, this Latin motto is a reminder that hard work is always required in order to achieve something. So, whenever you encounter an ad or a person telling you that you can make money easily, or from home sitting to watch your computer, or even worse, just by financial speculation, tell those people that you do not buy their lies. Life is a trip made of either thefts or contributions to mankind. You shall decide to what side you want to belong. It is a trip for those who decide to believe, to bring contributions, to cultivate noble sides of life, and for those who work to manage a team, a business, an organization, and companies. It is truly noble deciding to maintain focus on positive energies despite the daily miseries that we hear and see. What surrounds us can terrorize us or can energize our will to act to improve it. This means to honor the research of the self-elevation and to seek the noble side of life. And remember that you will not take anything tangible to the grave. You won’t take with houses, cars, money, nor the greatest fortune that you can collect in a lifetime. If you want to do something good for humanity, it’s in this life that you have to try. Always remember that your life is a spark shot out of nowhere and you will return in the dust where you came from. So if you want to leave a positive mark, start now.

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Pulvis et umbra sumus We are dust and shadow (Horace)

DO NOT SILENCE YOUR INTERNAL VOICES Whether in the silence, or in the crowd, you feel an internal voice saying that something is not as it should be. That voice aims at bringing you to elevation. Do not silence it. That voice can be heard - even if very faintly - by those who no longer believe in anything, those who received severe blows from life. This voice tells you that there is still a reason to get up, a reason which you can feel but do not comprehend, a reason that transcends your own understanding. It’s also heard by those who cannot stand oppression, the arrogance of forced schemes, the choking of ideas, the brutalization of human freedom by totalitarian regimes and oppressive ideologies. It is a voice that tries to get into our heads. This voice is also the target of “psychological operations” aimed at silencing it, operations conducted by television serials or commercials advertising, by moral blackmail, and whatever psychological operation causes depletion of free will. It is also heard by who is at the beginning of life and adolescence, those leaving childhood and trying to find a place with meaning on the journey of life. Teenagers or young people begin soon to sense, in their life of study or work, that something is wrong, and start to experience the exploitation by the "bastards" that abound in every organization, the suckers and thieves of ideas and projects, those who want to prevail by 168


diminishing others and especially young talents. For them, the choice is to fight this system or become a part of it and perpetuate it. It is essential to understand quickly that if you do not fight this system it will devour your soul So, start to “eat” good ideas and thoughts that help you to have a solid foundation, before life hits you hard. We can build a form of armor against life-blows, existential loss of meaning, professional loss of orientation, knowing well that we can never eliminate the dangers, since there are too many around. It is much better to learn perceive the blows, to understand where they come from, reinforce body and mind, but also to open wings and fly above the caves. The real purpose is not to withdraw into a shell, but to open your wings and fly at a higher level of consciousness. This is very ambitious. But feasible too. The real problem is not how high you can fly. The real problem is to not recognize when you stay inside a mental fence for too much time, without knowing or thinking that there is something else to discover. Any goal of self-improvement is noble and pure. Rogers and Kinget 25 spoke of the concept of experiential freedom that is, above all the freedoms, the capacity to recognize and sense own feelings, hearing inner voices with clarity, beyond any form of mental noise, and getting rid for the sense of guilt for the feelings we have. We first have to accept ourselves, our past, our failures, and then try to move on. This is not only external freedom, but a very form of inner freedom.

25 Rogers, C.R & Kinget, G. M (1965), Psychothérapie et relations humaines, Nauwelaerts, Lovanio.

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We must never silence our inner voices. Whether it is good or bad voices, happy or sad voices. Whether those voices are about fatigue, feelings of inadequacy, confusion and disorientation, of discomfort, or desire to achieve dreams and projects. Listen to them, let them speak, talk about those voices with others, let them express. Get to the roots of their needs. Clarify the meanings they are trying to convey. They can only bring you to light and never towards darkness. This is a fundamental secret of mental energy.

20 HUMAN SKILLS WORTH CULTIVATING We can bring our best energies to life. We can and we must “give shape” (“model”) our energies like an artist sculpts a marble statue; we must cultivate them, and train them daily. We must transform our trip in life into a constant exercise of achieving our Human Potential, and become a free soul. What are some of the goals of HPM (Human Potential Modeling)? We cite a few:

AWARENESS-RELATED SKILLS 

Mental Clarity. MC is divided into 2 sub-objectives o

Enhancing “Trait Mental Clarity” or “Ground Mental Clarity”, the state of mental clarity in average conditions.

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o

Working on State Clarity or “Situation Specific Mental Clarity” - clarity in specific Actions, specific Goals, Missions, Strategies.



Emotional Strength, getting rid of unnecessary Trait Anxiety and State anxiety.



Be aware of the balance on the 6 Factors of Human Potential (Body Energies, Psychological Energies, Macro-Skills, MicroSkills, Vision/Values, Goals And Priorities).



Ability to recognize: understanding people, cultures and situations (situational awareness, cultural awareness).



Move away from superficiality.



Reclaim

time

and

manage

time

with

wisdom

and

consciousness. Your time is precious. You are precious. 

Be able to balance activation (stress) and recovery (regeneration, rest, relaxation).



Be able to detect when our nervous system is prevailed by the Parasympathetic System or the Sympatic System26, bring

26 The parasympathetic nervous system (PSNS, or occasionally PNS) is one of the two main divisions of the autonomic nervous system (ANS). The ANS is responsible for regulation of internal organs and glands, which occurs unconsciously. To be specific, the parasympathetic system is responsible for stimulation of "rest-and-digest" activities that occur when the body is at rest, including sexual arousal, salivation, lacrimation (tears), urination, digestion, and defecation. Its action is described as being complementary to that of one of the other main branches of the ANS, the sympathetic nervous system, which is responsible for stimulating activities associated with the fight-or-flight response.

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it out of the unconscious domain into the conscious domain, transform it into a trainable skill, and train yourself on it. 

Listen clearly to your internal voices and produce regularly an “out of box” list of thought, a list of your internal thoughts, capable to free your emotional memory from stress. Once the “out-of-box” is made, emotional elaboration is still active but free from the “duty to remember”.

RECOVERY RELATED SKILLS 

Generating inner silence, concentration.



Serenity under Stress.



Mental Peace: recognize and remove negative mental rumination.



Recovery, Relaxation, Meditation.

ACTION RELATED SKILLS 

Dynamics and Efficiency when in Action.



Cultivate Vital Energy.



Ability to decide, step into the decision time, and not postpone or procrastinate important decisions.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parasympathetic_nervous_system for more information

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

Speed of Intuition.



Increased and Enhanced Perception.



Build an Automatic and Immediate Responses Repository (AIR) to face dangerous situations (a military-derived psychological concept very useful in everyday life to face situations rapidly).



Speed of Access (immediate access) to Automatic and Immediate Responses Repository.

Growing up on these plans is good, and wise. Several of these goals require training and coaching, but it can be done. Any activity that improves our Lifestyle and Thinkstyle is useful. If we can provoke a discussion, clean up dirty and useless ideas and bring in fresh air – this work cannot be useless. You will be amazed in seeing what happens to you once you have worked on those skills, as well you are amazed in seeing in action the people who have already done it. This is their secret. Make it yours!

People travel to wonder at the height of the mountains, at the huge waves of the seas, at the long course of the rivers, at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motion of the stars, and yet they pass by themselves without wondering. ”

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Saint Augustine (Augustine of Hippo)

THE COURAGE OF BEING AND DOING WHAT MUST BE DONE

Etiam si omnes ego non Even if others do it, I will not Italian Special Forces

A very deep and profound meaning in ancient wisdom that meets perfectly modern Human Potential Research is that of the “Free Soul”. Let the Soul free means to let it be what it is meant to be, get it out of the Box, no matter what. The freedom of the soul from the mass, the freedom of behavior, and the freedom of thought, combine with the courage of being honest with yourself and keep your path in life and behavior according to your moral judgment. Even if others do it, I will not, is a very strong argument! It works also the other way around: Even if other’s don’t’ do it, I will. I will do what my moral judgment says it is good and must be done. I will take my risks and live my life fully. This means to be a hero. Probably one of the best representatives of this approach to life is Jesus Christ, that died on the cross for his ideas, and paradoxically, another representative is Giordano Bruno, a medieval hero of free thought that was killed for refusing to give up his ideas on Human Potential freedom, by the Catholic Church, the same institution that 174


grew from a prosecuted martyr, and of which Jesus Christ himself would not be proud at all. Giordano Bruno was a priest, an idealistic thinker, a philosopher, and a scientist. His courage of seeking for the truth went even further than the then-novel Copernican model. He proposed that the stars were just distant suns surrounded by their own exoplanets and raised the possibility that these planets could even foster life of their own (a philosophical position known as cosmic pluralism). He also insisted that the universe is in fact infinite and could have no celestial body at its "center". In 1584, when the Catholic monk Giordano Bruno asserted that there were "countless suns and countless earths all rotating around their suns," he was accused of heresy. He refused to retreat his ideas, and was tortured and killed publicly in Rome. I took hundreds of year before his ideas could be honored. NASA's first exoplanet mission, Kepler, launched in 2009, has found that small planets are likely to be millions and very common in the galaxy. Many retreated their thoughts in front of the Inquisition, but Giordano Bruno applied his honor of free Soul up to dying for it. How many companies are doing the same now, really now, while you are reading, when an employee or manager points out to some fact that should be taken care of and the bosses fire him for this freedom? So let’s get back to this wisdom: Etiam si omnes ego non Even if others do it, I will not

A phrase from the Gospel of Matthew 26:33: Et si omnes scandalizati fuerint in te ego numquam scandalizabor. Translated in English: "Even if all [others]... I will never".[Mat. 26:33] brings the same message. 175


In times when everybody is a coward, being a free soul is being a hero. When all the people takes the left, if you think and your moral judgment says to take the right, take the right. In times when every soul looks for A, if you feel it’s good to look for B, just go ahead and look for B. A variant is Et si omnes ego non, as written on the door of Philipp von Boeselager's home, highlighting the necessity of maintaining one's own opinion and moral judgment, even in the face of a differing view held by the majority (in particular, it refers to von Boeselager's dissent and resistance against Hitler during the Nazi dictatorship). In the same rooms where Giordano Bruno was questioned, for the same important reasons of the relationship between science and faith, Galileo Galilei, also faced a famous inquisitorial trial, Engineer, philosopher, and mathematician, Galileo played a major role in the scientific revolution. When most philosophers and astronomers still subscribed to the view that the Earth stood motionless at the centre of the universe, he said and scientifically proved that the Earth orbited around the Sun (heliocentrism). After 1610, when he began publicly supporting the heliocentric view, he was opposed by astronomers, philosophers and clerics. He was sentenced to death, but forced to abjure, he spent the remaining nine years of his life under house arrest. Galileo Galilei, Italian “father of all astronomers”, father of physicist, under house arrest for his ideas. Giordano Bruno killed and burned alive for refusing to give up his views about the universe. Can you imagine something worse? Yes, in the history of mankind, dictators and institutions have killed and tortured and did anything they could, to force the Soul to stay in the box. 176


But we are here again. We are here again. Abjuration is the solemn repudiation, abandonment, or renunciation that these regimes require to those who think differently, in order to push their Soul inside the box and practice systematic Brainwashing. Abjuration can sometimes be a necessary “external act”, but we never have to abjure our innermost values. An abjuration that is done strategically can have a survival value, it can be an act of courage, if it allows us to stay alive and keep to pursue our goal, our mission, our values. At the end of the Game, what is important is that we do not abjure to our real Soul, and our search for goodness, freedom and knowledge keep on inspiring us now and forever.

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SCIENCE BOX: FOUR LEVELS OF EMPATHY, KNOWLEDGE AND WILL FOR GETTING OUT OF “CULTURAL PRISONS”

© Daniele Trevisani www.danieletrevisani.co m

Relational Empathy

Behavioral Empathy

Empathy

Cognitive Empathy

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Emotional Empathy


The Model is originated from Intercultural Research carried out by Dr. Daniele Trevisani with the purpose of identifying specific “layers” of empathy. Every person interprets and feels one or more parts of the other involved in relationship. Strategically, the higher our level of understanding, the more effective we can be in generating a desired response (behavioral or psychological) in others. The four levels of empathy: 

Behavioral empathy: understanding the behavior of a different culture and its causes, the ability to understand why the behavior is adopted and the chains of related behaviors.



Emotional empathy: being able to feel the emotions experienced by others, even in cultures different from one's own, to understand what emotions the culturally different person feels (which emotion is flowing), of which intensity, which are the emotional lives, how emotions are associated to people, objects, events, situations, in private or public aspects of different cultures.



Relational empathy: understanding the map of the relations of the subject and its affective value in the culture of belonging, to understand with whom the subject relates whether voluntarily or compulsorily, who has to deal with that subject in order to decide, in work or life, what is his map of "significant others ", the referents, the interlocutors, "other relevant "and influencers affecting their decisions, who are enemies and friends, who can affects his/her professional and life decisions. 179




Cognitive empathy (understanding of different cognitive or prototypes): understanding the cognitive prototypes active in a given moment of time in a certain culture in a single person, the beliefs that generate the visible values, ideologies underlying behaviors, identifying the mental structures that the individuals own and which parts are culturally-depending" (Trevisani, 2005) 27.

The Model is originated from Intercultural Research carried out by Dr. Daniele Trevisani with the purpose of identifying specific “layers” of empathy that go beyond the personal cultural domain. First appeared in: Trevisani, Daniele (2005) Negoziazione Interculturale. Comunicazione oltre le barriere culturali, Milan: Franco Angeli (Title translation: Intercultural Negotiation: Communication Beyond Cultural Barriers) Every person interprets and feels one or more parts of the other involved in relationship. Strategically, the higher our level of understanding, the more effective we can be in generating a desired response (behavioral or psychological) in others. The four levels of empathy: 1. Behavioral empathy: understanding the behavior of a different culture and its causes, the ability to understand why the behavior is adopted and the chains of related behaviors.

27 Trevisani, Daniele (2005), Negoziazione Interculturale. Comunicazione oltre le barriere culturali, Milan: Franco Angeli (Title translation: Intercultural Negotiation: Communication Beyond Cultural Barriers).

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2. Emotional empathy: being able to feel the emotions experienced by others, even in cultures different from one's own, to understand what emotions the culturally different person feels (which emotion is flowing), of which intensity, which are the emotional lives, how emotions are associated to people, objects, events, situations, in private or public aspects of different cultures. 3. Relational empathy: understanding the map of the relations of the subject and its affective value in the culture of belonging, to understand with whom the subject relates whether voluntarily or compulsorily, who has to deal with that subject in order to decide, in work or life, what is his map of "significant others ", the referents, the interlocutors, "other relevant "and influencers affecting their decisions, who are enemies and friends, who can affects his/her professional and life decisions. 4. Cognitive empathy (understanding of different cognitive or prototypes): understanding the cognitive prototypes active in a given moment of time in a certain culture in a single person, the beliefs that generate the visible values, ideologies underlying behaviors, identifying the mental structures that the individuals own and which parts are culturally-depending" (Trevisani, 2005).

Once accomplished the task of understanding, strategic empathy becomes a tool for cultural intervention on the "memetic structure" 181


of a different culture, in order to obtain changes (learning, or strategic changes), intercultural understanding from the counterpart, and obtain a deeper understanding on our cultural side. Intercultural Persuasion requires a deep understanding of the four factors in Trevisani's model. If not achieved, intercultural persuasion will be based on "inward-oriented selfish cultural models" that can generate boomerang effects rather than persuasion. It becomes also possible to build a "Reverse Engineering": understand how personal emotional states are influenced by the culture of origin and attempt to make interventions that can bring back the control to the individual removing the cultural chains that restrict the individual into a "cultural prison".

EXCAPING THE CULTURAL PRISON The four components model of the “cultural prison” can be applied to Self-Awareness: 

Emotional Self Awareness. How do I feel? How would I describe how I feel right now? How did I feel in a specific situation? How do I think I will feel in a specific situation? What consequences does this generate in me? Is my culture generating some sick emotional background, unnecessary sense of guilt, or marking behaviors as inacceptable while they do not really hurt anybody?



Relational Self Awareness. Who makes me feel happy or sad? The situation, the person or persons, the environmental setting, the social situation, that fuel my emotional states. Other people’s expectations. My willingness (high or low) to comply with social 182


and peer pressure. Am I slave of relations that I did not really want, is my culture forcing me to accept relationships, friendships, marriage conditions, or belonging to social groups while I would really be better without? 

Cognitive

Self

Awareness.

What

conscious

reasoning

or

unconscious mechanisms make me feel this way? What network of values, attitudes, memories, comes to my mind when I am faced with a problem, with a choice, with a person or situation? Is my culture forcing inside me some sick cognitive prototypes, some memes that alter a clearer perception of reality? What part of my ideas arise from my reasoning and confrontation with my soul, what are instead the parts of my ideas that have entered inside me bypassing my awareness and consciousness and are slowing down my Personal Growth and Human Development? 

Behavioral Self Awareness. What do I do when I feel this way? What would I like to do, how would I like to feel when I do it? Are there behaviors in my life that come from belonging to my culture but probably would not be really mine if I could have chosen when I was growing Example: when and where to drink alcohol, or smoke, what to eat or not eat, what types of physical exercises to do or not to do (and why, example see the differences in purpose between Bodybuilding and Tai Chi, or between Martial Arts and Athletics), how to dress, the expectations of my family, the unwritten dresscodes of my company, the expectations of my society about how to dress in specific situations, and thousands of other micro-behaviors 183


Self-understanding is a key ability that can be studied and learned. The same holds true for understanding the emotional world of other individuals. Intercultural empathy is the ability to perceive the world as it is perceived by a culture different from the subject's own. Empathy at the intercultural level regards a variety of issues, such as the approach to time perception (deadlines, temporal precision, perspective time), how to negotiate with people from different cultures and organizations, and the ability to integrate all possible difference of communication styles due to differences in culture. The 4 Levels of Empathy model generates the following questions, useful for coaching and counseling approaches:



Emotional. How does that person feel? How do you feel?



Relational. Which people are involved in his feelings? Who generates or triggers them? With whom does he/she share them?



Cognitive. How does that person reason? What network of values, attitudes, memories, is active in him/her?



Behavioral. What does the person exactly do? What can I observe from clear behavioral patterns? What are the subtle behavioral moves, the nonverbal moves, verbal expressions, facial microexpressions?

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Exercising our understanding from verbal and non-verbal cues Sample of offerings or requests

Reaction Score (range from +100 extremely positive, to -100 extremely negative, where 0 is neutral), Surface Reasons, Deep Reasons

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15.

After the analysis, pick an item of your choice and try to examine the 185


deep thoughts of your colleague or client about it.

Use up to 5 levels of “why” questioning. Explore the experience the person has had with the item or related item. Explore the cultural norms that relate to the item and the emotional stats that relate to the item. Explore the traits of personality that seem to generate this type of reaction. The exercise will be over only when you feel you deeply understood the reaction of your colleague or client and he/she will have confirmed that your perception is right.

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SOUL BOX: DELPHIC WISDOM

The Delphic maxims are aphorisms said to have been given by the Greek god Apollo's Oracle of Delphi. The most famous one is perhaps 'Know thyself', which was carved into Apollo's temple at Delphi. The maxims consist of over 100 aphorisms that may vary in number and statement by version of the text (or translation). Its origins go back to the classical period of Ancient Greece (510-323 BC), and the site of Delphi was believed to be determined by Zeus when he sought to find the centre of his "Grandmother Earth" (or Gaia). The modern usage of Delphic Wisdom Table proposed by Daniele Trevisani is that of “checking” which phrases hit your internal cords, uncover which beliefs you hold and which are not active in you, and which priorities you might want to pursue for your positive change. Every phrase covers an entire spectrum of deep meanings that can generate an enormous amount of change and motivation. It can be used in personal knowledge plans and personal development plans, as well as in organizational development plans, in order to find which “guiding principles” should be the center of our future decisions.

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147 Delphic maxims No.

Greek

English

001. Επου θεω

Follow God

002. Νομω πειθου

Obey the law

003. Θεους σεβου

Worship the Gods

004. Γονεις αιδου

Respect your parents

005. Ηττω υπο δικαιου

Be overcome by justice

006. Γνωθι μαθων

Know what you have learned

007. Ακουσας νοει

Perceive what you have heard

008. Σαυτον ισθι

Be yourself

009. Γαμειν μελλε

Intend to get married

010. Καιρον γνωθι

Know your opportunity

011. Φρονει θνητα

Think as a mortal

012. Ξενος ων ισθι

If you are a stranger act like one

013. Εστιαν τιμα

Honor the hearth (or Hestia)

014. Αρχε σεαυτου

Control yourself

015. Φιλοις βοηθει

Help your friends

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016. Θυμου κρατει

Control anger

017. Φρονησιν ασκει

Exercise prudence

018. Προνοιαν τιμα

Honor providence

019. Ορκω μη χρω

Do not use an oath

020. Φιλιαν αγαπα

Love friendship

021. Παιδειας αντεχου

Cling to discipline

022. Δοξαν διωκε

Pursue honor

023. Σοφιαν ζηλου

Long for wisdom

024. Καλον ευ λεγε

Praise the good

025. Ψεγε μηδενα

Find fault with no one

026. Επαινει αρετην

Praise virtue

027. Πραττε δικαια

Practice what is just

028. Φιλοις ευνοει

Be kind to friends

029. Εχθρους αμυνου

Watch out for your enemies

030. Ευγενειαν ασκει

Exercise nobility of character

031. Κακιας απεχου

Shun evil

032. Κοινος γινου

Be impartial

033. Ιδια φυλαττε

Guard what is yours

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034. Αλλοτριων απεχου

Shun what belongs to others

035. Ακουε παντα

Listen to everything

036. Ευφημος ιοθι

Be (religiously) silent

037. Φιλω χαριζου

Do a favor for a friend

038. Μηδεν αγαν

Nothing to excess

039. Χρονου φειδου

Use time sparingly

040. Ορα το μελλον

Foresee the future

041. Υβριν μισει

Despise insolence

042. Ικετας αιδου

Have respect for suppliants

043. Πασιν αρμοζου

Be accommodating in everything

044. Υιους παιδευε

Educate your sons

045. Εχων χαριζου

Give what you have

046. Δολον φοβου

Fear deceit

047. Ευλογει παντας

Speak well of everyone

048. Φιλοσοφος γινου

Be a seeker of wisdom

049. Οσια κρινε

Choose what is divine

050. Γνους πραττε

Act when you know

051. Φονου απεχου

Shun murder

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052. Ευχου δυνατα

Pray for things possible

053. Σοφοις χρω

Consult the wise

054. Ηθος δοκιμαζε

Test the character

055. Λαβων αποδος

Give back what you have received

056. Υφορω μηδενα

Down-look no one

057. Τεχνη χρω

Use your skill

058. Ο μελλεις, δος

Do what you mean to do

059. Ευεργεςιας τιμα

Honor a benefaction

060. Φθονει μηδενι

Be jealous of no one

061. Φυλακη προσεχε

Be on your guard

062. Ελπιδα αινει

Praise hope

063. Διαβολην μισει

Despise a slanderer

064. Δικαιως κτω

Gain possessions justly

065. Αγαθους τιμα

Honor good men

066. Κριτην γνωθι

Know the judge

067. Γαμους κρατει

Master wedding-feasts

068. Τυχην νομιζε

Recognize fortune

069. Εγγυην φευγε

Flee a pledge

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070. Αμλως διαλεγου

Speak plainly

071. Ομοιοις χρω

Associate with your peers

072. Δαπανων αρχου

Govern your expenses

073. Κτωμενος ηδου

Be happy with what you have

074. Αισχυνην σεβου

Revere a sense of shame

075. Χαριν εκτελει

Fulfill a favor

076. Ευτυχιαν ευχου

Pray for happiness

077. Τυχην στεργε

Be fond of fortune

078. Ακουων ορα

Observe what you have heard

079. Εργαζου κτητα

Work for what you can own

080. Εριν μισει

Despise strife

081. Ονειδος εχθαιρε

Detest disgrace

082. Γλωτταν ισχε

Restrain the tongue

083. Υβριν αμυνου

Keep yourself from insolence

084. Κρινε δικαια

Make just judgements

085. Χρω χρημασιν

Use what you have

086. Αδωροδοκητος δικαζε

Judge incorruptibly

087. Αιτιω παροντα

Accuse one who is present

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088. Λεγε ειδως

Tell when you know

089. Βιας μη εχου

Do not depend on strength

090. Αλυπως βιου

Live without sorrow

091. Ομιλει πραως

Live together meekly

092.

Περας επιτελει μη αποδειλιων

Finish the race without shrinking back

093. Φιλοφρονει πασιν

Deal kindly with everyone

094. Υιοις μη καταρω

Do not curse your sons

095. Γυναικος αρχε

Rule your wife

096. Σεαυτον ευ ποιει

Benefit yourself

097. Ευπροσηγορος γινου

Be courteous

098. Αποκρινου εν καιρω

Give a timely response

099. Πονει μετ ευκλειας

Struggle with glory

100. Πραττε αμετανοητως

Act without repenting

101. Αμαρτανων μετανοει

Repent of sins

102. Οφθαλμου κρατει

Control the eye

103. Βουλευου χρονω

Give a timely counsel

104. Πραττε συντομως

Act quickly

105. Φιλιαν φυλαττε

Guard friendship 193


106. Ευγνωμων γινου

Be grateful

107. Ομονοιαν διωκε

Pursue harmony

108. Αρρητον κρυπτε

Keep deeply the top secret

109. Το κρατουν φοβου

Fear ruling

110. Το συμφερον θηρω

Pursue what is profitable

111. Καιρον προσδεχου

Accept due measure

112. Εχθρας διαλυε

Do away with enmities

113. Γηρας προσδεχου

Accept old age

114. Επι ρωμη μη καυχω

Do not boast in might

115. Ευφημιαν ασκει

Exercise (religious) silence

116. Απεχθειαν φευγε

Flee enmity

117. Πλουτει δικιως

Acquire wealth justly

118. Δοξαν μη λειπε

Do not abandon honor

119. Κακιαν μισει

Despise evil

120. Κινδυνευε φρονιμως

Venture into danger prudently

121. Μανθανων μη καμνε

Do not tire of learning

122. Φειδομενος μη λειπε

Do not stop to be thrifty

123. Χρησμους θαυμαζε

Admire oracles

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124. Ους τρεφεις αγαπα

Love whom you rear

125. Αποντι μη μαχου

Do not oppose someone absent

126. Πρεσβυτερον αιδου

Respect the elder

127. Νεωτερον διδασκε

Teach a youngster

128. Πλουτω απιστει

Do not trust wealth

129. Σεαυτον αιδου

Respect yourself

130. Μη αρχε υβριζειν

Do not begin to be insolent

131. Προγονους στεφανου

Crown your ancestors

132. Θνησκε υπερ πατριδος

Die for your country

133 Τω βιω μη αχθου.

Do not be discontented by life

134. Επι νεκρω μη γελα

Do not make fun of the dead

135. Ατυχουντι συναχθου

Share the load of the unfortunate

136. Χαριζου αβλαβως

Gratify without harming

137. Μη επι παντι λυπου

Grieve for no one

138. Εξ ευγενων γεννα

Beget from noble routes

139. Επαγγελου μηδενι

Make promises to no one

140. Φθιμενους μη αδικει

Do not wrong the dead

141. Ευ πασχε ως θνητος

Be well off as a mortal

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142. Τυχη μη πιστευε

Do not trust fortune

143. Παις ων κοσμιος ισθι

As a child be well-behaved

144. Ηβων εγκρατης

As a youth be self-disciplined

145. Μεσος δικαιος

As of middle-age be just

146. Πρεσβυτης ευλογος

As an old man be sensible

147. Τελευτων αλυπος

On reaching the end be without sorrow

Any leader with the ability to select the right principle, in the right time, will be much more than a “technical” leader. He/she will become a reference point for anybody that is looking at ways to express Human Potential and human energies, and use if for positive and useful purposes. This, in the end, is the ultimate goal of any wise leader.

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AUTHOR’S PROFILE

Dr. Daniele Trevisani (1965) is a European researcher and consultant in Human Factor and Human Potential. He obtained the Magistral Graduation “Cum Laude” in DAMS (Performing Arts and Communication) at University of Bologna. His graduation thesis on "Incommunicability Research" opened new veins of research in several applied aspects of communication and psychology. He was than awarded the Fulbright Scholarship from US Government for Communication Research and obtained a Master of Arts in Communication at University of Florida. Further specializations obtained: University of Kingston upon Hull (UK) in Drama, Philosophy (La Sorbonne, Paris), International and Intercultural Communication at the American University of Washington, DC(USA), Bologna University in Psychometrics (Italy). He trains Companies, Teams, Athletes, Commanders, Leaders, in advancing towards their full potential, increase skills and awareness, and explore new paths of personal growth. Contacts with the author: please see www.danieletrevisani.com www.studiotrevisani.it

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