© 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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Inner beliefs and outer beliefs are two different animals. Inner beliefs defy logic. If you believe you have the talent to succeed, you usually do. If you don't, you probably don't. Logical argument will not sway a person in either direction. A person with a flickering belief in their own self worth can strengthen that belief through learning, with maturation, or maybe because of a traumatic experience or a challenge. Someone with a tendency to put themselves down can descend into truly neurotic self-defeating behavior as the negative belief intensifies.

Outer beliefs have to do with the world outside yourself. These are the prejudices we've already discussed. They, too, can be intensified in either direction. In this outer realm, you will have beliefs and prejudices, but you won't hold them as strongly as you do your inner beliefs. They're just not as important to you. When people descend to racism and hatred, it's often a cover for their own self-loathing. They either cannot understand or cannot face up to their inner beliefs, so they cling to outer beliefs. Outer beliefs cannot sustain a human being, so in this case distortion occurs.

Digging into the Kinetic Human Core fills the human being with positive, life-affirming inner beliefs. Tremendous possibilities for creative action arise, many of which you can control and intensify yourself. Hold on tight to these inner beliefs. But outer beliefs are a double-edged sword; they can be both useful and dangerous. You get transitory use from them at best. Treat them like hot potatoes.

My friend Jack quit his managerial job because he had a strong belief he could succeed in his own business. He had many skills. He had leadership experience. He had the ability to raise money and the contacts to go with it. He also had confidence. And that's just the problem. His inner beliefs were fine but his confidence caused him to intensify his outward belief that the market for the product he wanted to manufacture was on a growth curve. You see, he liked the product and always wanted to get into the business of manufacturing it. Sadly, his intensified outward prejudice, though a positive one, did not serve him, and the business failed. Oh, he did his research and feasibility studies, but unconsciously he directed his studies toward what he wanted to find. He jumped on positive findings and down-played serious negative indicators. Many businesses fail for very similar reasons—a blind spot caused by prejudice.

Successful people in or out of business have outside prejudices like anyone else, but they all have the capability to use their prejudices and outside beliefs wisely, and to leave them in the dust if necessary. Knowledge, information, prejudice, belief—all have their place if used properly. The perspective to use them wisely is a function of maturation and growth, which itself is a function of the effective use of the Trans-Biological Imperative.

Exercise: Prejudice and Maturation

• Set aside a nice block of index cards to write down some of the beliefs you hold, one to a card. You should have at least two dozen, covering all areas of your life. You may have a lot more. Do this over a period of a few days or weeks, carrying the cards with you.

• At appropriate times, sort the cards into two groups: inner and outer beliefs.

• Feel free to write comments on the cards when the mood strikes you.

• After you've given the whole process of making and maintaining the cards some thought, give a score to each of the beliefs, both inner and outer. Use a scale from -10 to +10, where -10 is very negative, +10 positive, and zero neutral.

• After you've given each belief a score, determine and write down an action-plan as to what you can do to raise the score of the belief. (In the case of a negative belief or prejudice, the goal will be to make it neutral by raising it to zero.)