Structure of Personal Excellence: Bob Tucker

Towards the end of our recent Personal Excellence Course, it became apparent that several of the participants were searching for a “structure” reflecting how all the different components of the thematic (such as transactional correctness, intent, concerns, aspirations and attention) interacted with each other.

It is of course, extremely dangerous to attempt to capture so intricate and complex a proposition in a single, two-dimensional and linear framework, but you might find the following thoughts helpful.

If we start with our worldly experience, expressed in factual terms as we did at the top of the T-bar, the first crucial question is whether we perceive that experience – as

• evidence of a bitterly competitive, survivalistic and material universe in which we survive, and every bad experience is confirmation of how horrible the universe is, or as
• evidence of an incredibly benevolent universe (of which the material is only a very minor objective part, and the major and much more interesting part is subjective and experienced otherwise than through the five senses) in which we flourish, and every bad experience is an opportunity for growth in understanding and a crucial part of the maturing process.

That “decision” as to how we perceive it is entirely in our discretion, and depending on how we exercise it, we trigger the process of Transactional Correctness as either benevolent or malevolent in its intent. Bearing in mind that the top line of that Transactional Correctness platform is either inward awe and an outward perspective of significance (if benevolent) or inward arrogance and an outward perspective of triviality (if malevolent), that results in an immediate feedback loop to how we perceive our worldly experience.

But in the bigger scheme of things, whether we are benevolent or malevolent in our intent determines how we experience “the other”, whether it be an harmonious and co-operative one, or an adversarial and conflicted relationship.

How we are experiencing the other has a direct impact on the state of our current concerns (security, fulfilment, power and harmony) and consequently on our aspirations.

Those lead to our formulation of our intent (take, give in order to take, take in order to give, or unconditional give).

The interaction between our intent and our worldly experience substantially determines for us what we actually give our attention to.

And it is what we give our attention to that effectively determines for us what our worldly  experience will be.  And so we live either in a virtuous or a discordant circle of experience, intent and what we give our attention to.