How to Coach Yourself and Others Beware of Manipulation | Page 122

One of the most damaging legacies of traditional psychology is the over-weighting it gives to people’s
insecurities and fears and the relatively complete inattention it gives to the myriad ways that they fight
and maneuver for the things they want. Everyday life is approximately 95% fighting and 5% running.
But traditional psychology is overly concerned about how and why we run, not how and why we fight.
By “fight” I don’t mean physical violence. Rather, I mean the forceful goal-directed energy we all
expend to get the things we want.
Sometimes, seduction can be very deliberate, calculated, and carried out in such a manner that the other
person is swept away.
Responsible people assert themselves and fight for the things they want in direct, fair, restrained, and
non-destructive ways. Disordered characters lie, cheat, and sometimes “shmooze” to get what they
want. They don’t like to be denied, so rather than approach things directly and run the risk of not
winning, they’d prefer to approach things on the sly and catch the other unaware. Playing to the desire
of another to be valued and liked can be a powerful manipulation tool. Most of the time, this is not
done with malicious intent or with such intensity that it does any real damage. Also, most of the time,
the person on the receiving end is aware enough to know that they’re being buttered-up and will enjoy
the flattery while not taking it so seriously. But sometimes, seduction can be very deliberate,
calculated, and carried out in such a manner that the other person is swept away. Then they can become
quite blinded about the nature of the person doing the seducing. Only after the manipulator gets what
he or she wants will their true character start to show. By then, it’s often too late.
One of the most fundamental and life-empowering principles I introduced in my book In Sheep’s
Clothing [Amazon-US | Amazon-UK] is that once people replace the destructive legacy of traditional
psychology — i.e., that everyone is almost always struggling with fears or insecurities — with a
mindset that life is far more about people maneuvering and angling for the things they want than it is
about them “running,” and once they realize that there’s a class of individuals best characterized as
unscrupulous and exploitive fighters who will advance their own agendas with almost complete
disregard for the needs of others, they arrive at a position to avoid being taken advantage of in the
future.

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