© Elliot Essman 2005. All rights reserved.

These pages contain the complete text of Human Action, public speaking trainer Elliot Essman's philosophy of human achievement.

Elliot Essman Public Speaking Training
Human Action Table of Contents
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We don't really know the results yet. It looks good, and there is a good aroma wafting from our five gallon tun. But it's not yet time to jump into the barrel and take a swim. Rather it's time to take a glass full of the beer, taste it and test it. In real brewing we'd use a device called a hydrometer to test alcohol content. The taste buds do the rest.

Feedback and reassessment are important tools if the goal is excellence. It doesn't matter what field we're in. We need to know how we're doing, make changes and adjustments if necessary, and focus our efforts on attaining our ultimate objectives.

The area of feedback and adjustment is a delicate one where many fine projects come to grief. Kinetic and mental flexibility plays an important role. The reality is that certain plans are made, with certain major expectations, and then results come that do not match the plans. Sometimes this failure to match is mistaken for failure itself. Here's where assessment and mental flexibility come in. Some failure to match is almost predictable in anything remotely complicated. In turn, failure to match often carries with it the seed of new ideas, new possibilities and genuine opportunities.

Think of this: what's the sense of letting loose the creativity inside you and going through all the steps of an ambitious life plan if you're going to assess the results using inflexible, unyielding and uncreative criteria? Applying the concept of “failure” is indeed such an example. There is no human effort, successful or otherwise, that doesn't bring experience.

Civilization, which in this chapter is represented by the craft of brewing beer, advances in little trial-and-error steps. Constant course corrections are necessary in any kind of navigation, whether by automobile, airplane or boat. Even when you walk, you're always adjusting, always reaching for a state of poised momentum. Trans-Biological Kinesis calls for seeing the process of living a successful life as a process and breaking through the compulsion to categorize it and give it a slot. So as any good brewer knows, you will have to make adjustments. You'll have to make course corrections, both fine and major.

Here's an example that illustrates the concept. Three Silicon Valley engineers decided to leave the companies they worked for and raise money to start a high‑tech business based on their own inventions. Among them they had half a million dollars. Their plans called for raising a million more outside. After much effort, they reached a major stopping block, their total failure to raise the additional money.

Instead of parking the money they already had in the bank or securities, these three favored a more active investment as they went about trying to raise the additional million. They purchased a promising chain of convenience food stores, then got involved in the management of the chain to protect their half million. They learned the business, ended up forgetting about their high tech start‑up, and became very wealthy running convenience stores, a business they, as high tech engineers, would never have thought of independently. Less flexible thinkers might have split the first half million among them and gone their separate ways. The convenience store scenario is a perfect example of a case where the failure to match expectations offered an opportunity in disguise. But to reach a state where you can take advantage of or even recognize the hidden opportunities caused by mismatching results, you've got to have a good foundation in Trans-Biological Kinesis. Only by being truly at one with the process of human achievement can you get the full benefit out of it.

Exercise: Readjusting the Brew

Make up a number of hypothetical scenarios for yourself where you will be forced to readjust your thinking. Some possibilities:
• A new romantic relationship

• You start a new business or career

• You run for political office

• Write down what your expectations and assumptions were in the beginning.

• Tell yourself what events or changes made your originals plans inapplicable.

• Try to ferret out wishful thinking, over-confidence and other traits that could threaten your ability to readjust to the changing situation.

• Detail how you will be able to readjust your plans to move toward success.