The Symmetric Property of Associations

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The Symmetric Property of Associations

9 April 2009 Comments

something-to-eat-perhaps-connie-fore-flickr

Photo: Connie Fore

The symmetric property of equality:
If A = B, then B = A.

What value does this have for you in your current career or personal life?
Many people do not realize there is a direct relationship between:
a) the skills, experience, and knowledge they possess internally, and
b) the quality of their network of associations externally.

And, they do not realize this relationship is symmetric. It goes both ways.

Many of us have been taught to believe that individual excellence will lead to stronger bonds with other like-minded people. (and, actually this is true.) Others may have been taught that it’s “not what you know, but who you know.”

The truth is that creating stronger bonds with successful people acts as a forcing function pulling you toward individual excellence. In fact, the old saying should go: everything you know is because of who you know.

In the 1970’s Richard Bandler and John Grinder created a new approach to interpersonal communication called Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP). One of their key discoveries, and the basis for much of NLP goes like this: We all know that internal attitudes will surface through external behaviors. Their breakthrough was realizing that merely changing external behaviors forces a change in your internal attitudes. The relationship is symmetric.

Bandler and Grinder went further and even showed that concrete skills and aptitudes could be improved just by modeling seemingly trivial external behaviors. Today, I am asking you to consider that the influence of your associations could have an even greater impact.

From now on, I encourage you to assess who your deep connections are in your personal and professional life. If you want to achieve excellence in an area of your life, consider starting by reaching out and establishing contact with people who are already doing it well. The results may surprise you.

Update:

Here is an excellent article I just found on this topic: Extreme friendships for extreme growth–the fastest way to go the distance.

Brooke

This is *the* thing I needed to read today. This is such a simple concept yet very complex to grasp and practice in the moments where the external behaviors are negatively changing our internal attitude. It usually evokes reactions rather than responses to the situation. The same can be said for external behaviors that positively change our internal attitude, except that sometimes the effect of the reaction is not positive at all.

To reference Don Miguel Ruiz' "The Four Agreements", he suggests four simple agreements to be practiced in each moment which will allow us the beauty of a positive belief system about ourselves.

Part of the value in ourselves and how others perceive us can have much to do with the words we choose to speak, and how we honor those words. If we are involved in coversation with words being spoken that are not true to how we feel, we have the voice to express our different opinion as a response though and not a reaction to the topic. We also have the choice to leave the conversation should the external behavior begin creating an internal attitude that is not desired. By not taking anything that was said personally, we have maintained our positive belief system about ourselves. To not take things personally also means that we should not make assumptions. Communication happens in so many ways but it is only by asking questions and attempting to understand the intention of another's words or actions that we can actually know instead of only interpreting what we assumed the message to be. The last agreement is to always do your best. As I am writing this, I just decided that for me, the easiest way to practice these agreements, is to simply ask myself in moments of doubt "am I doing my best". If the answer is no, it will be clear as to which agreement I need to give thought.

I believe we are in each situation in our lives for a specific reason. I remind myself that sometimes when I am meeting new people and I'm trying to figure them out, I am too focused on figuring out if they are a good person that I lose sight of looking at the person they are, in that moment, also sharing their time with me. It is also good for me to remember that when I do not make a connection with someone on whatever level I was intending, it doesn't rule out that that person is friends with someone that I *will* connect with on whatever level. We all have intentions and reasons why we do what we do, go where we go, but sometimes I think we need to let those focused agendas go, appreciate the moment we are experiencing with another person and realize they may be doing the same.

So in my experiences when I find that if A=B, then B=A, yet the solutions are not congruent with my beliefs, I choose to remove myself from the equation. If there is no A, or if there is no B, then neither can be true.

What I am trying to say is this is great encouragement and I am going to challenge myself to apply this information to my life, career being first!!!

Justin McCullough

First off, Thank you for your investment in Triiibes and secondly, your connection with me and my site. You validated the first concern "will anyone ever see the posts on my blog". Thanks for reminding me that a tree does in fact make a sound in the forest when it falls....

On to the topic here. I agree with this whole-heartedly. However, here's the rub. Finding like minded people, especially talented and successful like minded people is like finding a needle in a haystack - really. As a result, we touch on groups like kids looking through a key hole looking for something we understand, something that resonates, something we want to be a part of. If it's not there, we move on. We know time is precious and when you have priorities set to only invest precious time in others who are "worth it", you find yourself (in most cases) looking for and finding ghosts - lingering ideas of people.

You see, we all have the ability to be our best every day, but most of us aren't. So, if you find me on an off day, you might walk on by, but you will still see something that makes sense to you, makes you think "hey this guy represents something I like but cant put my finger on", and to you, this may or may not make sense but not certainly not 100% and not all at once. So you have to evaluate and decide quickly - did you see me or a ghost? (I say me not necessarily meaning me personally).

Hopefully, circumstances, similar comments, similar gathering places, similar badges of honor or backgrounds and other things will bring people together with frequency of contact (either intentional or otherwise) and that allows us to reconsider someone we may have discounted early on. But I think the real issue is that you have people who want to give and share and you have people who want to take and feed. There is a lot of dynamics at play during the selection of associates and somectimes people latch on to us, and other times we latch on to others because its simply the best we have at that point in time. I think we all want to give. Frankly, I'd rather give a marketing and sales lesson to a clueless college kid "who just might get it one day", then not give the lesson to anyone at all.

In the end, I think we are all stair stepping up, sideways, down, and around looking for a connection and hopping its the right connection because we only have "so" much time to give.

.... Interesting, I spent more time here than I planned to give. Look, is that a ghost?! :)

Lets keep in touch.

Warmest regards,
Justin McCullough
Life is good.

PS: if you are willing to school me on more of this media, tagging, social management, and other web2.0 efficiencies I'm certain I can swap something intellectually valuable with you if I know what you are looking for. :)

Walt Gordon Jones

Justin,

I completely agree. One of the thing I like about where the web is headed is we are getting so much more information handed to us that helps us evaluate the whole person. ...way better than basing everything on a quick handshake and a hello.

Meanwhile, I've also noticed some really smart people who are new to this whole thing. it took me forever to finally start my own blog. Now that I have, I'm excited to be giving people more to look at than just a Facebook or LinkedIn page.

I will definitely give you some tips on connecting up all your social profiles!

Cheers, and see you on Triiibes!