Many are Transactional... Especially at Level 1
Learning Who People Really are by Doing a Permissionless Apprenticeship w/ the Chicago Steel
At the perfect intersection of Level 1 Coach and Force… There is an interesting observation of human nature.
As a Level 1 Coach, most people don’t care to listen to you because you don’t have ‘status’. I also refer to this as a credibility stamp.
On the other hand, is it just the fact that ‘transactional’ people populate half of the United States and Western world? (49% of US Citizens calibrate below 200 on Hawkins Map)
Is it because of a lack of status that people are transactional?
Is it because they are transactional that the lack of status influences how they act?
Chicken or egg? Or both? Let’s go through some examples of what not to be in this world:
Transactional
Finite
Selfish
Case Study 1: The Transactional Coach
A few years ago I released a course where most of the teaching clips were from the USHL’s Chicago Steel. And in the build-up to releasing that course, I previewed some clips on social media. And when I did, a few HockeyTwitter people started engage with the content which I thought was a nice change.
After the course popped off one day, I got a DM from a coach at the u18 level. This coach had a decent-sized following and his engagement with my material was helping me grow and spread my messages across HockeyTwitter.
He asked about my interactions with the Steel and had a question about how they practiced.
I was honest and told him my course and study of the team were from an outsider's perspective. I pulled all the footage from games on HockeyTV at the time and hadn’t indicated that I had direct contact with the Steel. I did offer to be a volunteer coach 2 years in a row but was denied, but that’s not the point… The point is, after reading my DM, he stopped engaging with my tweets, content, and messages.
All of this to say, he was being transactional. Being on the inside of the USHL’s hottest team which was his idea of what I was at the time, could have netted him ‘benefits’ by ‘being friends’ with me. Once he found out I was an outsider, the relationship ceased to be. And not because I ‘did’ anything but because I wasn’t ‘someone’.
Case Study 2: The Non-Recipricol Person
When you need them. They respond and they do so repeatedly and dependably.
When they need you, the same cannot be said.
This is a parasitic relationship.
My fiancee, Tiffany is a dog trainer for those who don’t know yet. And she lives an In-Powered life too. She gives more than she takes. And she’s willing to help her clients after hours, on a whim, and at their convenience at the expense of hers.
When a client has an emergency question at 8pm, she’ll troubleshoot with them. Some might be thinking it’s a lack of boundaries but her intention is pure 90% of the time. The other 10% is a lack of boundaries and you’ll be happy to know she’s working on it, okay!
She bends over backward and over-delivers for her clients and then she asks them at the end when their dog has completely transformed to fill out a short Google review that helps her and the company… And what do you think happens?
Now that the program is over, the relationship might as well be too. And no review is submitted in many cases even though the clients are ‘happy and pleased’ with the results.
If someone is going out of your way, reciprocate. If someone is providing consistent value, find a way to help them too. This requires slowing your life down and thinking of someone else. Something that isn’t in the minds of those who calibrate below 200.
What To Do?
Matthew 7: 16-20 has some advice for you on how to spot integrity in the wild. Or its lack…
“You can spot them by their actions, for the fruits of their character will be obvious. You won’t find sweet grapes hanging on a thorn bush, and you’ll never pick good fruit from a tumbleweed. So if the tree is good, it will produce good fruit; but if the tree is bad, it will bear only rotten fruit and deserves to be cut down and burned. You’ll know them by the obvious fruit of their lives and ministries.”
It’s difficult to say it more simply than the Passion translation of Scripture, but I’ll try.
It’s not what people say, it’s who they are being. Intentions can be masked, but discernment can unmask who they are.
If you need a first step, purify your intentions, chop down your rotten tree, and sow some new seeds:
Smile at someone today
Buy someone a coffee
Leave a review for a small business you frequent
Get out of your own ‘problems’ and help someone else for no reason at all
Simple, right? It’s simpler than all the ‘smart’ influencers will tell you. You’ll have to drink coffee at a specific time and eat a certain concoction before you can do something nice for someone if you follow a certain crowd…
Bringing these ideas to your attention is simple, practicing them consistently though also simple, will prove difficult for some. The truth is, sow new seeds, reap new fruit. It won’t be rotten this time. And by your new fruits, we shall know a new you.
What you do today for someone else will create a ripple effect.
Go.
Do.
Doing will eventually become ‘being’.
Being greater will raise you to a new level.
“When you change your personality, you change your personal reality.”
-Joe Dispenza
Related: