Influence #5: Create New Empowering Alternatives

The Fifth step is about finding resources that were previously unavailable. These could be internal or external. If you grasp that people are always doing the best they can with the resources they have, then it makes perfect sense that SOMETHING NEW must come into the situation.

Internal resources:

1. Self love
2. Self confidence
3. Energy
4. Fear management
5. Memories of past successes
6. Clear motivating goals
7. Shifted belief patterns
8. Etc.

Or they could be EXTERNAL resources:

1. Friends
2. Family
3. Mentors
4. Libraries
5. Role Models
6. Co-workers
7. Partners
8. Employers
9. Etc.

Grasping this, then, following the pattern we have established, to help someone who is stuck you must:

1. Really respect them enough to genuinely connect with them and see the world from their perspective. This requires that YOU be healthy enough to be unafraid of testing another reality model. (A solid example: to really understand a racist, you have to be capable of asking how the world would look if they were actually RIGHT. And I could not do that until I had no fear that I was wrong.)