Who Are ~ The Special Ones?

"Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness".

~ Martin Luther King.

Want to know how to make more sales? Get people to take action? Follow your leadership? Or just do you a favor? There's books written about it. People who make a living telling you how to do it. Industries built around the secrets, tips, processes and insights on how to do it better. But when you drill them all down most say "Focus your attention on others needs - serve well enough and you will be served." And you know what? ~ Duh. But think about the paradox. You are tuned in to an end result that will satisfy your needs. You are tuned in to the channel WIIFM (What's In It For Me?) as a starting point. Human beings are, by nature, self serving creatures. If we don't make the sale. If people don't do what we ask. If we don't get the result we wanted it's usually because we didn't communicate to another human being that taking action was in their best interest. Our message, our value proposition, wasn't strong enough to overcome their not taking action. We didn't connect, emotionally, with their WIIFM station. Their WIIFM was listening to something more compelling and important. So we don't get what we want ~ and, if we are big boys and girls, we take responsibility for that and say "I didn't make it important enough ~ I didn't connect and tune in well enough to their WIIFM".

But what about the Special Ones? Who are the Special Ones? The Special Ones start with a different premise. They recognize that WIIFM is our true nature, and it's difficult to resist, but they start with something that's greater than themselves. They start with something that goes against their self interest - something uncomfortable, without immediate reward, with disadvantages, and with an end result that may in fact work against their self interest. Something that satisfies a good outside of themselves. Now a psychologist will argue that the satisfaction gained from this is, in fact, self interest fulfilled. So, they will point out, special ones are nonetheless following a human beings true, self serving, nature - perhaps so. I still think they're special.

So what does all this psycho babble / mumbo jumbo mean?

If we want to sell more, get someone to do something, or follow us ~ We simply need to appeal powerfully enough to their WIIFM.

If WE want to do something special ~ Tune in to another station.