Embracing Your Shadow Self

By Robert Middleton - Action Plan Marketing

Today I interviewed John Scherer for the Action Plan Marketing Club. It will be posted on the Club site next week.

John's book, "Five Questions that Change Everything" taught me some things I had never even thought of before. More specifically, he taught me that my dark side or shadow was where my greatest opportunities for growth lie.

In today's interview we got into this topic in some depth and I'd like to share the essence of what we explored together.

John asserts that we all have a "persona" and a "shadow." This "persona" is our winning formula, all the good stuff we try to project to the world. He suggests not putting a lot of effort into trying to improve that. This is what we've been doing all our lives.

But the shadow is a different story. This is the stuff that we're trying to hide from the world. This is a conglomerate of negative characteristics and beliefs.

John went on to explain that a great way to have access to your dark side it to find a famous person (living or dead) who embodies the shadow side. This is the last person you'd want to be (or associate with, for that matter).

I picked Donald Trump. I see him as manipulative, self-centered, greedy, arrogant and full of hype.

Now as marketing coach and consultant to professionals, I don't see these as positive characteristics. Neither do most of my clients. They don't want to be seen as "high-end used car salespeople," which is how many people perceive Trump.

But then John turns the tables on this. He said, "Robert, now you want to look at Donald Trump, and if you stripped away all that was despicable about him, what would you have left?

Well, I'd see a lot of positive things. I'd see that he was a good dealmaker, and was good at building an organization and delegating. He's good with his people and has many loyal employees. He gives a lot of money to charity. He took big risks, many that have paid off. It's not to hard to see a lot of very positive attributes in Mr. Trump.

Then John told me to make a list of all those negative characteristics that I didn't admire and that were such a turnoff, and to find the positive part of those characteristics.

For instance, if you scale back "manipulative" you get the more positive aspect which is "results producer." They are simply two ends of the same stick. One end is detested while the other end is admired.

But here's the thing. If manipulation is an issue for you, even being results-oriented can also be an issue. Your style will be to just let things happen. So producing results consistently is a stretch for you. This is an area you want to develop.

So your shadow side is pointing out to you where you need to grow and stretch if you want to go beyond where you are now.

Let's look at some of the other Trump characteristics.

Self-centerdness. Let's turn down the volume a little and you get to "taking care of your needs." This is something a lot of self-employed people have problems with. It's give, give, give until you hit burnout.

Greed. Greed is seen as negative but scaled down you get "abundance and sufficiency." There are a lot of self-employed people who haven't saved a dime. They are so focused on others that they often fail to handle the basics - like a savings and a retirement account.

Arrogance. This is a turnoff but at the other end is "boldness and confidence." In our resistance to arrogance, we fail to demonstrate much self-confidence in the fear that people will think we are too full our ourselves.

Hype. This is a big one when it comes to marketing your services. At the other end of the spectrum is, "clear and interesting communication." Certainly a good trait to develop, but in our resistance to hype, we tend to market blandly and boringly.

Now Trump may not be your nemesis, so take a minute to think who it is that really turns you off. It might be a past president, an entertainer, or a business person.

And then go to school on that person. First, strip away the negative and look at the positive that's left over. That's what you have to work on, to aspire to.

Next, make a list of all the negative characteristics of this person and find the "crucial stretches" of each characteristic. You are not looking for the opposite. For instance, the opposite of arrogance is nice. But you're already nice!

Is that really getting you where you want to go? The stretch is boldness and confidence. And that (and other stretches) can take you to wonderful new places in your life and business.

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The More Clients Bottom Line: This conversation about one's shadow and discovering the crucial stretches that are essential for growth, is an important one for self-employed professionals. If you are resisting marketing, avoiding taking risks, communicating with little excitement, and fearing rejection, it may be because you are denying your shadow self.

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What are some of your shadow characteristics and what are your crucial stretches? Please share on the More Clients Blog. Just click on the Comments link below.

Comments

[Erika Awakening]

Well, I was just blogging about the Shadow Self this morning. I really enjoyed how you put it -- to recognize the "good" aspect of every seemingly "bad" quality, thus collapsing the duality. The Trump analogy was very vivid for me, helped me picture some people I tend to distance myself from, thinking "I'm not like them." But of course I am ... :)

[Robert Middleton]

Thanks so for many comments on this Blog. I highly recommend the book. It goes into great depth. And in the Marketing Club interview, we go into this in some depth.

More of this juicy kind of stuff to come!

Cheers, Robert

[Matt Baier]

Boy, this one really got my attention. I've been reading your ezine for years and I've never felt so challenged. As a professional organizer, I find my client's challenges really come down to priority management, but this exercise really forces me to take a hard look at MY priorities. There are so many goals that I am not achieving because of certain holes in my personality. You have helped me realize that I need to take a closer look at the traits I despise to discover a fresh perspective on those holes. Great post. A real eye opener! Thanks.

[Jeff Meyer]

Nice piece Robert!

Hit home on several counts. I did remodeling for years and long ago saw Trump boasting on some show about how he got all his buildings done for 80% of cost by screwing the contractors out of their final payment with endless callbacks - this hinge squeaks, this doorknob doesn't latch right, etc. until the just gave up trying to collect. Crap like that can put a contractor out of business. So I'm long-time Trump despiser.

The "two ends of the same stick" analogy is a good one. Stephen Covey has used that in talking about how all our choices come with consequences attached (the other end of the stick). We've about run our country into the ground by allowing corporations and financial institutions to grab one end of the stick and throw the other end of the stick in the taxpayers lap - something you can't do with a real stick - the consequences are attached to the choices in the real world.

Thanks for offering a way to turn some of this stuff around and get it headed in a positive direction

[Pamela Jaye Smith]

Thank you so much, Mr. Middleton, for this really accessible and immediately useful article on the shadow side.

As some of the commentators have noted, this is a staple concept in psychology and well worth exploring at a deeper level, but I very much appreciate how you have made it instantly applicable in today's email.

Hopefully we'll all be inspired to explore it further via the books and authors recommended.

And to that end, I'd also recommend my own book, THE POWER OF THE DARK SIDE which gets into what is also called the "Dweller on the Threshold" - our own inner foibles and demons that stand in the way of our goals and aspirations.

The more versions of this principle we have out there there better, so thanks also to the other commentators for their suggestions.

[Rolf Kenmo]

Well, I agree with Dave, but I like also to add that therefore it is wise to search for constructive and truthful feedback.

Moreover, you can simplify your analysis about the shadow. See the negative behaviour as an exagerated good behaviour... A mature person delivers his resources in the right quantity for the situation.

You can learn more on my website (look below) or buy my book "Let the Personality Bloom";-)

[Heidi]

Hallo Dave,
how do you suggest one finds the shadows inside oneself? Is it looking at the things we don`t like about ourselves and then deal with them the same way we deal with what we see in our Trump?

[Dave Bull]

The concepts of the persona and Shadow are not new; Jung articulated these in his work on the several layers of personality.

The formula above scratches the surface, but there's deeper work to be done on the Shadow, and it's not for the squeamish! The Shadow is not only that which we try to hide from the world, it's often also that we hide from ourselves (i.e. denial) and in hiding it we fail to learn to control it and so it bursts out from time to time as "uncharacteristic" behaviour.

Jung says that to master the Shadow we must first embrace it and acknowledge that it is a part of our self, no matter how abhorrent its contents!

So, don't only project your shadow onto your own personal Trump, you need to acknowledge all those things inside yourself before you can move on.

Looking forward to the interview!