"Creating Being" Dilemma

by Ron Macklin, MacklinConnection Founder

Let’s say I’m meeting with someone I know. Well, I might not really know them, but I do have ideas about who they might be. At MacklinConnection, we call these ideas “stories.”

Some of the stories I have made up about this person are drawn from my own experiences, while some are from gossip. So, when I meet with someone, I have a story I have made up about them, and then I create who they are for me. I do this to create the filters through which to see them, and to be responsible for the stories in my head. To help you better understand what I mean, I create who you are as a reader. You are a smart, caring, curious, creative, passionate, and courageous family member and businessperson. 

You might wonder how I know these things about you. The answer? I don’t. It is who I create you to be. It is a story I create in my head, and I commit to see you through that story, as if it were a filter. It is just that simple — but it’s not comfortable. 

The “Creating Being” Dilemma

The story I struggled with when I started this practice was my story about the stories others were making up about me. How were they seeing me through their stories? I struggled with that story for years. It occurred to me this was a conflict like the Prisoner’s Dilemma. If you are not familiar with the Prisoner’s Dilemma, Google it, which you probably already have. Game theorists and experts in other domains study the Prisoner's Dilemma.  

The winning strategy for both prisoners to obtain the most rewarding, or least punishing, result is to hold each other’s concerns and not betray each other. I hold that this winning strategy is what most people do in real life. The secretaries who were tested with the original Prisoner’s Dilemma certainly did. In real life each of us in a conversation is like a prisoner isolated in their own cell. We don’t know what the other is thinking, but the strategy that works is to hold the other’s concerns throughout the conversation. And how does your listener know that you’re doing this?  

Holding your concerns is what I am doing when I create a story in my head about you as a smart, caring, curious, creative, passionate, and courageous family member and businessperson. If I do this, my listener is more likely to make up a story that I am holding their concerns with every word I speak. They, in turn, are more likely to treat me as smart, caring, curious, creative, passionate, and courageous.  When we meet someone, and they see us as someone with these traits, we usually see them as the same.  ‍

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Want more content like this? Check out “The Story In Your Head” podcast.