The Confrontation
Level 5: Master Player
Future Guardian,
If you've accepted any of The Guardian Academy philosophies and principles into your life, chances are you experience (or will so) a particular and challenging "gap" in your life, between yourself and others.
It might show up as a feeling of resistance, or conflict in your social relationships.
In business it might show up as a distinct challenge in connecting with your audience, or any broader audience at large.
I want to unpack this "gap" ...
To reveal to you "The Confrontation" which is inevitable.
To begin, with context from my personal experience:
In copywriting, we have a pretty standard practice of "not blaming our reader."
Let's say we're talking to writers. We aren't going to say, suggest, or insinuate that they are a bad writer. That they aren't to blame for whatever they haven't achieved as a writer.
Instead we'll say something like, "it was school's fault for not teaching you how to write well."
If you're struggling to lose weight. We aren't going to say it's your fault you are fat.
No. We might say it's your genetics. We might say it's your family. We might say it's the culture you are surrounded by. We might say it's a failure of anyone else to teach you the right way.
See how that goes?
It has multiple positive effects for the outcome "we" the copywriter are going for.
While putting something else to blame between you and the problem, it gives both of us an enemy to focus on. We become friends in the fight against this enemy.
It gives you a reason for the problem you are experiencing as well as the solution to that problem. (Your education didn't teach you to write properly, fortunately it's easier than you think thanks to our special approach)
And perhaps most powerfully, this type of framing and positioning is highly pleasing and addictive to the reader.
"Oh it's not MY fault I'm fat?" yea, who doesn't want to believe that when they are fat?
Pardon the pun, but people in that position will eat it up all day.
If you are aware of Karpman's Triangle1, you can be armed with a perspective that can help knock you out of that type of situation.
But I'm not actually going to talk about Karpman's Triangle today.
I want to explore a particular shift that happens personally, and the gap that appears with others once you embrace The Guardian Academy philosophies and principles.
Because critically ...
If you follow what we teach here, you must accept that YOU are responsible.
I'm fat?
Well, it's because I made poor choices. Or perhaps I made good choices with a poor outcome but failed to explore why that happened. Or I just ALA'd2. In any case, it's my actions and my responsibility for why I'm here.
This is very confronting for anyone who doesn't share your perspective (most people).
There are two lenses I want to explore this through ...
Marketing, and Personal Life.
The marketing lens is a good one to look at because we can see the exploitation of this gap in full effect (Karpman's Triangle).
The personal life lens is useful because that's what most of us will experience, and instead of exploitation, what you have to deal with is a distancing between yourself and others (related: Scrutiny and Expectation)3
Marketing first.
If you are a marketer/copywriter/business owner, etc ... and you are fully embracing TGA principles and philosophies for the growth of your business, you have to face a dynamic that is much different than most marketers will advise you on.
You've got to face the fact you'll turn away people who don't want to hear that they are responsible.
Spoiler alert ...
That's most of the population.
I'll tell you this though, if you DO take this path, while you'll drive away anyone who doesn't want to face their own responsibility, the people you attract and accept the truth are far more valuable.
Let's explore ...
To begin, we'll take a trip through a rather esoteric concept called "Diffusion of Innovation."4 This concept illustrates for innovative technologies that there are 5 subsets of the population which will adopt the new technology in time when it's appropriate for them.
These are the five:
Innovators, Early Adopters, Early Majority, Late Majority, Laggards
And the "Diffusion Curve" is typically represented like this:
Take smartphones for a short example.
Innovators are the folks who had hand-held computing devices like palm pilots in the 90s.
Early Adopters had blackberries and the first versions of iPhone and Android.
Early Majority adopted iphone/android and similar smartphones after a few years.
The Late Majority have since then fully adopted smartphones.
Laggards even are getting into it, though you'll still find holdouts who won't touch a smartphone.
The earlier you are in the Diffusion Curve, the newer the technology, the higher the perceived risk in using it. Folks who fit into the Innovator category of the diffusion curve are more comfortable with the risk and the unknown of using a new technology.
The further along the curve you get, the more proof people need.
Early adopters still tend to accept a level of risk and newness, being comfortable using tech few other people do, being "at the edge" - but they still want a level of clarity and assurance. They let the Innovators trail blaze, and then follow along when the time is right.
This continues on the curve ... the further you get, the less risk is tolerated, the more certainty and specificity people want.
With smart phones, Apple's App Store played a major role in crossing the diffusion curve, as they gave a wide variety of specific and reliable use cases for the phone. "There's an App for That" meant an individual later on the curve could justify getting a phone, because well ... they needed the app for their yoga studio (or whatever).
That's a very brief primer on Diffusion of Innovation.
Now I'll ask you to accept that the DOI curve can be used to understand how people across a broad population accept new ideas. It doesn't just apply to technology.
We're going to take that idea and explore a concept made by Lukas Resheske5. This is a structural way of considering the different strata of decision making (it was developed from a copywriting perspective, but applies to everything).
"The Clarity Compass."
You can consider that every idea and way of thinking exists along this framework: Philosophies, Principles, Strategies, Tactics, and Tools.
Your Philosophies are the things you believe. These are not measurable.
Your Principles are things you know to be true. They are discoverable and learnable. They rarely change.
Strategies are things you do which are dependent upon the environment you are in and which are informed and determined by your Philosophies and Principles. As an example, a General is going to have a different Strategy fighting in the mountains vs on a flat plain.
Another example, you might open a store in order to employ the homeless and help your local community. In this case your principles and philosophies are around helping people in your community. So another strategy (environment) might involve a community center, or working with local businesses.
Tactics are things you do which are relevant to the strategy, in the moment. They are ever changing, often reactionary.
Tools are the things you use to execute the tactics.
There are a few interesting dynamics to note about this framework.
Philosophies and Principles are ways of thinking and perceiving. This is who you are. This is why you do what you do.
Strategies, Tactics, and Tools are WHAT you do.
The first is much broader and uncertain. The second, much more narrowly defined and certain.
To think and operate in Philosophies and Principles, you really must know yourself, know what you want, know why you want it, and understand the perspective that getting what you want is about embracing the process6.
Thinking and operating in Strategies, Tactics, and Tools is much easier.
You don't need to know yourself, who you are, why you do what you do to operate here. I'll say that you won't operate well here if you don't know those things, but as far as your capability and comfort level, you'd be able to do things (and probably get stuck for a very long time).
That's why people get so easily caught up in strategies, tactics and tools. Especially tools. (This is certainly the case for entrepreneurship, but happens throughout the human experience)
This is another way of thinking about Form and Function.
People want to know the best thing to do (Form).
They want to know the best funnel, the best email software, the best coffee brewer, the best pencil, the best computer, the best shoes, the best diet, the best weight lifting routine, blah blah blah.
If someone else tells them the strategy, the tactic, or the tool to use (the form), they have certainty of their next action.
They don't have to think deeply.
They can just follow blindly.
If it works, they can say they chose the right strategy, or the right tool. If it fails they can blame the person who recommended the strategy or the tool, or they can blame circumstances out of their control, or really anything or anyone who isn't themselves.
Again, see Karpman's Triangle.
Marketers will take advantage of this gap, this weakness, by dangling appealing strategies, tactics, and tools in front of victims in order to appear the savior. They'll make a crapload of money, and help maybe 2% of the people they take from.
(See the intro of this article)
You know what this all maps curiously to?
Diffusion of Innovation.
In DoI, the population follows the curve. MOST people fit into the Early and Late Majority. Few fit into Early Adopter, and even fewer into Innovators.
The further you get down DOI, the less risk people are comfortable with, the more they desire certainty that what they are doing, getting, or being is correct and good.
It's the same with Philosophies, Principles, Strategies, Tactics, and Tools.
Very few people are comfortable operating under Philosophies and Principles, because it represents a higher level of risk, simply in that the only way to operate there is for YOU to take ownership over yourself.
If something doesn't work out, it's your fault.
This happens to be the case no matter what, but for people who accept operating under Philosophies and Principles, they also consciously accept that self responsibility.
When something doesn't go right, they have the self awareness to reflect inward, instead of blaming others.
No one can tell you "adopt this Philosophy and you'll make $1m next year," because philosophies are what YOU believe, they require self understanding and self perspective, they aren't a thing you adopt that magically gets you an outcome.
It's the strategies/tactics/tools that get the outcome.
Why am I harping on this?
Because most people out there are in the majority.
They don't want to deal with Philosophies and Principles.
They want someone to come along, tell them the strategy, the tactic, or the tool, get them a lot of money and then they never have to confront themselves.
The problem?
The tools are dependent upon the tactic, the tactic is dependent upon the strategy, and the Strategy is uniquely informed by the Principles and Philosophies of the person executing it.
You can't reliably go help someone by giving them a strategy, because the right strategy for them requires their perspective on their Philosophies and Principles.
The only reason this appears to work for some people, is because if you get enough people to adopt and use your strategy, some small percentage WILL be successful just by statistical randomness (some people’s philosophy and principle will naturally align).
Then you can take the relatively tiny amount of successful people, blow their stories up in proportion and make it sound like everyone else in the world is getting success with the Strategy, all you have to do is follow the steps.