Personal development to save the world: Steve Pavlina’s Personal Development for Smart People
Wednesday, October 08, 2008
It’s great to achieve goals and and to see my abilities develop over time, but to me, growing for myself isn’t enough. I undertake the task of becoming a more powerful, truthful, and loving human being because that’s what I need to become in order to create the future I believe we can and should have.
The thing I love most about the framework for personal growth Steve Pavlina outlines in his new book, Personal Development for Smart People, is that this holistic context is built right in.
Throughout the book, he uses the metaphor of cells in a body. Each of us is a cell in the body of the universe, he says, with specialized functions to perform but also with undeniably strong connections to all the other cells. As he proceeds through the fundamental principles of personal development, he returns to this image again and again to underscore the idea that personal development is never really taken just for one’s own sake; that what benefits each cell also benefits the body as a whole; and that aligning our individual selves with the principles he describes pulls the entire body into closer alignment with them.
These principles are all related to each other but also distinct, and inevitably lead to development in people who are aligned with them. The three primaries are truth, love, and power; the three secondaries are oneness, courage, and authority; and intelligence stands alone. The system works out neatly: truth + love = oneness, love + power = courage, power + truth = authority, and all of them together add up to intelligence.
Thinking about this model in terms of our world and the future we want to build, I can definitely see where our current culture could grow by coming into greater alignment with the basic principles, and, most particularly, intelligence:
Truth—Honestly recognizing that something needs to change is the first step to changing it. Imagine the steps we could take if we could all admit that our way of life is not working in some very important ways.
Love—Think about what we would create with true understanding that we are all one, and that which benefits the body as a whole also benefits each cell, and vice versa.
Power—We have much more potential to change things than we think we do. If we each connected with our personal power individually and as communities, we could really achieve anything.
Intelligence—Such a large percentage of human suffering is caused by accepting the status quo instead of consciously thinking through our problems and possible solutions to them. Looking at the way we live and changing it by applying the best of our traits—intellect, connection, and heart—could utterly transform the world.
Of course, part of being a fully conscious person is taking responsibility for the state of the world and working to improve it by creating new ways of living and thinking and relating to one another. And so in my examination I also need to look at myself, and how much I am aligned with each principle. I have pushed into many corners in my efforts to grow, but like all of us I have more to push into.
Steve says that most of us have uneven alignment—we may be stronger in love than in truth or power, or some other combination. I perceive myself to be strong on love and truth but weaker on power (like many women, I think, including Steve’s wife Erin Pavlina), so I am focusing my efforts on developing power right now.
The last few weeks I have taken this on directly, working to eradicate inertia from my life and, instead, to spend every moment I can in the most valuable way. Steve’s book provides lots of great methods I can use to challenge myself—right now I’m working with his suggestion to schedule my entire day from beginning to end and, more importantly, stick to it. So far, I give myself an A on this effort, but I’m going for an A plus!
Steve’s book has been both inspirational and educational in my efforts to take my life to the next level—to experience what spiritual teacher Andrew Cohen calls vertical development, where instead of hacking your way through a problem with a machete, you suddenly see it in a new way and rise above it. I can see Steve’s book providing this new insight and the possibility of vertical development to a great many people who read it with the desire to improve their lives, and thereby improve the world.
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Hey Meg! This was very beautiful and so important to consider. The post modern age has been so against anything that is mental, and it is not serving us well. We have many real issues that need to be addressed, and striving to raise above our individual limitations can only help. Thanks for sharing this.
Connie
Hello Meg, “human suffering is caused by accepting the status quo instead of consciously thinking” caught my eyes because one of my deep post modern condition,value is “Self image=status quo(Be decent)”,also 3 principles “Truth”,“Love” and “Power” is like law of physics,simple yet make perfect sense of the human development mechanism.
Thank you to brought wider perspective,otherwise I would be rigid to “No,No” for any personal development books.
Also you are try out the method is inspiring becuase I’m also more passionate and can focus my energy with the things where I can hands on ,learn from error & mistake,experience.
I ‘m also impressed that you always choose interesting books, I think you can start the book club ....I definitely want to buy this book.
I am really concerned that a lot of personal development models do not challenge the individual to tackle how the mind has been conditioned and how those conditioned responses get in our way of truly seeing things as they are. Race, sex, gender, class, religion and many other fragmented ways to view reality are often not addressed in order for us to truly see oneness. I’m all for personal development and the continual growth in psycho-spiritual relating to all phenmena, but, we have to have tools that help us to see through the bullshit. Many models skip this very important step. I like the idea of cells making up the body of the universe - and I have heard this elsewhere, but, I’m afraid that it is difficult to apply. But, that’s only my initial reaction ... which could be way off base. We are at a time when new ideas need to be presented, yet, I’m really a friend of the tried and true. Hm. But, what works for one may not work for others. :) on and on and on…
(I’m responding at the bar after two glasses of whiskey. So ... grain of salt.)
connie and shizuka, thank you for your comments. and brandon, i am with you on the fact that many PD models seem focused on being more productive and effective at doing the same old things.
the thing i like about this book is what sets it apart from many other PD books—which is its insistence on understanding that we are individuated parts of the same whole, and that acting in our own interests on the deepest level is the same as acting in the interests of the universe. i don’t want to just do the status quo better—i want a new status quo! from this book, i think steve does, too, and his way of building it is to grow himself, and teach and inspire others to do the same. part of that is laying down what we think is true (our conditioning) so that we can perceive more accurately what *is* true.
one thing i really like is his idea of treating everyone you meet as though they are already your beloved friend. i have been practicing this for several days and, even though i spend most of my time home alone with a cast on, it’s still a lot harder than it sounds!
he even extends this to feeling oneness with inanimate objects, which is bizarre but kind of cool. we are all manifested out of the same soup of simultaneous emptiness and fullness, we all came out of the same big bang and are wave patterns in the same field of reality, so why not extend feelings of oneness to absolutely everything?
i’m really excited by this book’s blend of spiritual and practical ideas. of course, i’m a pragmatic idealist at heart, so it’s probably to be expected. :)
Word.
Yeah. In many ways, I guess, I feel we are trying to reinvent the wheel, where, many traditions around the globe have been saying these exact same themes for thousands of years. Naturally, they have been said in many different ways, relating to the culture in which they arose ... but ... maybe the fact of the matter is that it needs to be said in a contemporary voice so that those that are disillusioned by the old formats (Buddhism, Taoism, Hinduism, Traditional African Religion, Qabbalah, etc.) or simply turned off by them, can apply them with a modern twist.
One thing that I don’t want to happen is for a lot of the newer forms ... Quantum Physics, New Age Metaphysics and others to be seen as a new leader for the new world when they are in fact old philosophies that have been thrown under the heap of many other ways of thinking.
I think it would be a shock to many that traditional people have been living these ideas (in different forms with multiple variations) for centuries and they were tossed aside as primitive.
I want to believe that people will take these ideas and live them practically in these disabling times, but, when I see people with their yoga mats and still harboring an “uppity” attitude ... I wonder how much new age principles and other forms are just magnified forms of selfishness. Yoga ... meaning to literally unite with all things ... has been commercialized and turned into an American fad. This makes me angry and suspicious.
:)
But, I hear you. I really do.
hey brandon,
are you familiar with the theory of spiral dynamics? it discusses cultural evolution as a matter of development, goes hand in hand with ken wilber’s work on integral theory.
these enlightenment traditions you talk about can get us most of the way there—we can ascend through their teachings to that wonderful place of oneness. but you’re right, they don’t have a lot to do with how we live that oneness in an age of capitalism, nuclear armament, global travel, the internet, and a level of individuation and ego identification that is unprecedented.
your critiques of new age spirituality are right on. ken wilber calls what you’re talking about “boomeritis,” which is the nasty confluence of postmodern pluralistic values and extreme narcissism.
the next stage for us is to get by our egos so that we can come together again and create the future, seeing the whole picture in an integral way, valuing everyone’s contribution, and connecting with the abundant evolutionary joy that drives the universe.
OK that was a novel. i’ll leave you with a video that i think you might like:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TlektNNtD_w
that was a good novel.
“boomeritis” - I like it.
Spiral Dynamics? I haven’t heard, but, I will definitely look into it.
Hopefully we are on way towards decentralizing our egos and e-merge-ing. We’ll see.
Sounds like an interesting book. There is such a huge range (or continuum) of how well humans today can live and express love (or, another way of saying it is for them to be acting with the awareness of the oneness of all life).
Important to not wait to be perfect to embrace one’s self, but to embrace one’s self RIGHT NOW. It seems like many problems/addictions/difficulties melt in the face of this love. Sure, in this world, we are not perfect, and life is often messy. But we are not of this world, we’re merely in this world (seeking to add more radiance unto that which we already are) and two of the most important words to tell ourselves in this very dynamic time is that “It’s OK”....and to do what brings us the highest joy (even if that means…[fill in the blank for yourself])
Hey, you have a great, informative and thoughtful blog here! I’m definitely going to bookmark you!
http://jamesrick.com/blog
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