Not your Average Observer

I've been working with my group class on awareness. I don't frame that word in new age mumbo-jumbo. I don't particularly care for academic definitions of concepts. Definitions (especially for something like "awareness") should give you opportunities for action. This is particularly true of "awareness."

I've been pretty successful a as a negotiator in my life. I do especially well in high risk environments where most people are taken off their game. Somebody once asked me what I thought was the secret of my success and I finally decided, after much reflection, that it was because of my experience in fighting. When you fight, the first ting you must do is size up your opponent. And the great thing about fighting is that you get immediate feedback to whether nor not your assessments were correct. Plus, the cost of being wrong is high. Years spent doing this allowed me to observe even the smallest things that would be missed by most people, particularly when they're under stress. My observer gets better and sharper when I'm under stress. Something I credit my training with. Now, even when I meet people socially, I go through that same sizing up. I may even them push them on something to see how they react. I then file that information away in case I need it later. Often, I'm more aware of a person's actions than he is.

I explained to my group class like this. Every person has two broad sets of sensors: internal and external. Internal sensors are the ones with which we determine how we're feeling and such. External sensors give us information about the outside world. These two set of sensors are inter-related. You have no measure to empirically judge the accuracy of your internal sensors so you try to make your external sensors as accurate as possible and hope that some if it bleeds over. Interestingly enough, this has no meaning to those people who only see external events through their internal sensors. Those people, to me, are the most unhappy because the world treats them very differently from how they think they should be treated.

But broadly, let's say that you have 100 point of mental and emotional energy you can allocate to your sensors. When it's peaceful and you have time for reflection, you should put 80% of the energy into your internal sensors. However, if you are subjected to stress, it should be the opposite. You should put 80% into the external sensors. The thing is, it is human instinct to do exactly the wrong thing. When you apply stress to the average person, they put all their energy into their internal sensors which takes away their ability to alleviate that stress.

In our class, we train to retrain this instinct. When we apply stress (through sparring) I want my students to gather information about the outside world. The better the gathering, the better decisions they can make. The point is to make it instinctive. Blood pressure goes up and you're instantly putting energy into your external sensors without having to make the conscious decision to do so.

Only be being armed with accurate information can you formulate a good plan. My negotiations generally were successful because I was able to assess the situation more clearly than anybody else. I was able to cut through the emotional fog and address the real issues. It wasn't because I was smarter or had a better plan. It was just because I saw more clearly.