Bob explaining what it means to be self or other centered and how each one is really the balance of the other.

Video Transcript

I think we need to talk about being self-centered and other-centered. Now, I live in America. I've been to other countries and Americans take a lot of pride in being other-centered, thinking about other people. That's not necessarily how they're viewed but if you ask 'em, that's what's reinforced in America, is that you should be other-centered. I've been to India. They're not other-centered. They're self-centered. I don't have a negative take on the self-centered or other-centered. I'm not taking sides. I wish people would stop dividing things up and just see that they're the balance of each other and how they need to work. So let's talk about the two things. So when you're other-centered, other-centered means you're looking at the other person, you're listening to them, you're feeling them, you're taking them in and you figure out what would be a, and thoughts enter your mind, or feelings enter your mind and then you take actions that would be good for that other person. And when you're doing that, you're not particularly doing it because of what you're gonna get back. It's not about that. It's that you get a lot of pleasure out of doing something for another person. And if you don't do that, you don't get the pleasure that you know you could've gotten. And then there's self-centered. And what self-centered person does is that they behave in a way where they get something that gives them a lot of pleasure and they get other people to do that for them too so that they get satisfaction themselves and like I said, most people think, "Well, other-centered's fabulous "and self-centered is terrible." No, no, no, no. That's not how that works. The way it works is that if you get enough for yourself then you would naturally become other-centered if you're a self-centered type. And if you're a other-centered type, if you do things for other people and you do enough of that, then you start becoming self-centered. You become balanced. The complication is is that the other-centered types, they think that being self-centered is selfish, and the people that are self-centered find it kind of ridiculous how other people are being overly other-centered. So both need to get educated actually and satisfied in the way they're being, whether it's self-centered or other-centered until they start to balance and get satisfaction the other way. Now some people that are self-centered need to be encouraged to be other-centered. More and more of them being self-centered is not gonna get them what they actually want. But they've gotten satisfaction so they think, "You know, more of the same's gonna give it to 'em." It's not gonna work. And the other-centered people can like go on endlessly about doing things for other people and sooner or later they're gonna have to learn that self-centered works but they feel kind of guilty or something when they're self-centered. No, no. We need both parts of these. Now half of the 16 types are self-centered and half are other-centered and then the fun part about it is if you've seen the videos on what a person's like, they have a conscious mind and they have an unconscious mind and they're conscious type might be self-centered which means their unconscious type is, if they're other-centered here, they'd be self-centered here or vice versa. So if I'm a self-centered type, then inside of me in an other-centered type. And so everybody's got both parts of them. One part of them is conscious and the other part is more unconscious and so to become balanced as a person, you need to develop both parts of yourself. Now, it's easy enough to tell you to do that but how are you gonna do that? Well why don't you ask people, if you're self-centered, why don't you ask people that are other-centered how they do it? Like, what are they feeling like when they have that? What kinds of things do they think about doing? Or what kinds of things do they feel like doing? Give me practical examples how to be other-centered so I can try them and see what it feels like. And if you're a self-centered person, if you're an other-centered person and you wanna be self-centered, ask people that you find self-centered, how do you do that? Like, what are you doing and what does it do for you when that happens? And then the self-centered person, very surprisingly, will tell you was that when you do things that are good for you, it's good for everybody else. And the other-centered person will tell you that when you do things for other people, it's actually also good for you. Who would ever guess? That's how these things balance always. Half the types are self-centered, half are other-centered. Some countries are other-centered and they think that's how you should be. Some countries are self-centered. They think that's how you should be but we now know that you need to have both and you need to balance those out. Why don't you start asking everybody? Instead of assuming you're supposed to already know which you obviously don't, when you are a particular way, why don't you just start asking other people how they do whatever it is they're doing, whether it's being self-centered or other-centered or honest or promotional or sober or. Why don't you start asking 'em how they do it? And then they're probably so used to doing it they don't even know how to tell you how they do it but just ask 'em and so on this topic, I think it's really important and I think it's really important for Americans in particular to be more self-centered and make sure they take care of themselves beside extending to others 'cause the culture is naturally teaching you how to be other-centered. So if you eat really good food, then if you're gonna give food to other people or do something, you're already well-fed yourself. I think that'd be a good thing to do. Take care of yourself and then you can extend more appropriately to other people. And if you're other-centered from other countries, then reverse that process. I think it's really that simple. Have a great time.

The Genius of Flexibility