Articles

Stop Being Fooled by the Surface

November 14, 2012 (Number 39) Have you ever felt a bit intimidated by someone's forcefulness?  Or felt inadequate when in the company of a colleague's seemingly utter confidence?  Or perhaps you felt inexplicably deficient when you asked an acquaintance how she's doing and she spouted, "Everything in my life is going really great!"

If you've had such reactions, they're quite common.  But what you're responding to is typically not even real.

As a psychologist, I've observed that people are frequently not as they present themselves to be.  In fact, if the appearance is a little extreme in one direction, I've found that the underlying truth is likely the precise opposite.  We psychologists call this "compensation."

In other words, people don't like to feel their vulnerabilities — or to reveal them — so they do a "cover up" that fools others and themselves.  And then they display opposite characteristics as if to announce, "See, I don't have any problem over here!"

For example, the most aggressive executives are frequently, underneath, the most sensitive ones.  Their feelings of sensitivity and vulnerability — until they recognize the inherent strengths available in these qualities — impel them to self-protect and show up as aggressive.

Similarly, people who excel in diverse and numerous undertakings are often "making up for" underlying, and typically irrational, feelings of deficiency.  Arguably, our (U.S.) President has at least a mild case of this, as evidenced by his need to excel even at such pursuits as bowling and billiards.

So keep these tips in mind:

• If you habitually feel badly about yourself when interacting with someone in particular, you may well be feeling the quality that he's disowning and compensating for.  For example, the aggressive CEO is (inadvertently) having you feel the vulnerability he doesn't want to feel.

• Importantly, once you grasp what I'm presenting here, don't use it to cynically dismiss others.  Rather, use it to have compassion for them, and yourself, because the deeper truth is that as human beings, we all have our personal struggles that are more or less evident to each other.

When you develop vision that penetrates behind the surface appearance of things, you will be less frequently intimidated and reactive — and much more solid.  And, necessarily, that will render you more powerful.

Dean Herman