The Power of Self-Awareness | William L. Sparks | TEDxAsheville

my name is will sparks and I want to talk to you about the power of self-awareness I believe that self-awareness is critical for not only reaching our highest personal effectiveness in reaching our highest potential it's also critical in the way we connect with others the way we're able to collaborate manage our emotions manage our triggers self-awareness is foundational I believe for reaching our highest potential unfortunately I believe our culture has narrowly defined self-awareness today to talk about it in only terms of your strengths know your strengths play to your strengths we live in what I call a strength finders culture everyone gets a trophy and that's an important part of the self-awareness equation but knowing your strengths is only half of that equation it's only half if you're going to celebrate your light you have to also understand the darkness your darkness my darkness so what I want to talk to you about this evening is an experience that I had twenty-two years ago at the hands of the late dr. Jerry B Harvey during my graduate studies when he not only dramatically increased my self-awareness he introduced me to call Young's concept of the shadow in 1996 I started the doctoral program at George Washington in organizational behavior and development and I was going to study under dr. Jerry Harvey those of you some of you may know his classic movie and article the Abilene paradox the Abilene paradox is essentially a kind of follow-the-leader syndrome we get into in business organizations everyone nods in agreement with the leader I'm sure you all can relate to that and we self-censor what we really think and what we really want to say and Jerry said we would get on the road to Abilene following the leader it's grounded in classic codependency dysfunctional so I was thrilled to be going moving up to the big city of Washington DC studying under the great dr.

Jerry Harvey his books were the textbooks and my master's program I just finished my masters in organizational psychology I was beyond excited I was 27 I was arrogant brash full of ego ready to take on the world there was one small problem there was a fly in the ointment and that was I was going through a divorce but my friends and family had assured me that what doesn't kill you makes you stronger I'm gonna compartmentalize this get through it and I'll go on to hopefully do great things so my very first class in that program was with dr. Harvey and I decided to write my final paper on the dysfunction of codependency in my failed marriage from my perspective so I wrote this paper I turned it in the last the last class he handed out the grades is one of these classes where you had to sit in a circle I hated that class because there's nowhere to hide and now I teach those classes but at the time I hated it and so he's handed out the final grades and dr. Harvey started with the person directly to my right and he went around the circle handing everyone their final grade and he got to me and I'm looking up at dr.

Harvey and he's staring down at me and in front of the entire class he says son you're going to need to come to see me for your grade and the class winced I mean you could hear this ooh not good so the next day his office hour started at 4:00 p. m. I was there at 358 and I knocked on his door and dr.

Harvey who referred to himself as a bible-thumping Southern Baptist was reading the Bible without even looking up he just pointed at the chair across from his desk and I took the took my seat nervous anxious ready for the bad news to be to be candid when he literally finished chapter and verse he turned to me and said William son what are we here to talk about and I said well dr. Harvey I'm here to talk about my paper and he said nope let's try this again son what are we really here to talk about and in my is called young calls it the fog of illusion my 27 year old ego I thought hmm I suspect professor Harvey would like my feedback on his class it's a wrong answer but I gave it and it both irritated and amused him but mostly irritated him and I'll give you the pg-rated version of what he said back he says essentially said son let me be really clear with you I don't give a damn about your experience in my class or your feedback I'm going to ask you one more time however before I fail you from this class son what are we here to talk about with that I thought well at this point I have nothing left to lose I might as well take my medicine get out of here and go back to Charlotte North Carolina so feeling deflated I said well dr. Harvey I guess we're here to talk about my divorce and a little slag ran crossed his mouth and he said I'll give you a b-minus on that answer because son we're here to talk about you and he held that stare and that point for just a second too long and I remember thinking this is going to hurt and it did I won't bore you with all of the details but essentially he said tell me how this all happened and I gave the version from my perspective we were both from a small town we had been high school sweethearts we had started out as equal partners going to take on the world and little by little this dysfunction of codependency took root in our marriage I felt like I was responsible for everything making all of the decisions I wanted an equal partner I wanted someone to push me to challenge me and all of that eroded and over the years that we were together it unraveled in this classic dysfunction he nodded in agreement with some of the things I said he winced in agony with others but after I had finished he said well son let's end the suspense I've got good news and bad news for you the good news is you made an A on your paper and based on the amount of red ink on that paper that really surprised me because it looked like his pen had exploded all over that paper but I let that sink in I made an A on my first paper with dr.

Harvey in my first class and that 27 year old ego and shadow kicked in so he began to give me some compliments about it's one thing to know a subject but you have actually emoted on it you've you feel the emotion of it and you've cited all of these sources you've gone back to the Greek philosophers you've got Freud you've got young you've got Frankel William one day you can teach this and he continues to give me accolades and this is probably one of the most embarrassing parts of the story if there is a most embarrassing as he's giving me these accolades my shadow comes right over me and I began looking at his office remembering the rumor I heard when I first started the program dr. Harvey was getting close to retirement and he was looking for his successor and the Dean had agreed that dr. Harvey could pick one of his given his clout in the field and I thought this is it this is why I'm called into his office it would be too painful for the rest of the class most of which were much older than me and had been in the program longer to hear all of these acolytes they've just be too hard for them and I have literally looking out of his window going to blocks aways the White House you've got the quad right here I would probably change the paint but overall it feels good it fits and of course he's setting me up and he sees that and right when he's got me where he wants me he clears his voice hmm I think to regain my attention and focus he said but son if you will recall I did say I had some bad news and as I had been glancing through my paper as he was giving me feedback I noticed that at the very end of the paper he cited call young and I just glanced at it thinking hey yeah that's right I'm I'm now colleagues with Jerry he's just appointed me and pretty soon it's good old Carl he said let me remind you though that I do have bad news and the bad news is I'm gonna give you an F in life dr.

Harvey was a social psychologist and he said son I agree with you your ex-wife is codependent that's highly dysfunctional your assessment is accurate there's only one thing worse and it's you you created this dysfunction and you have the audacity to come into my office and try to manipulate me into colluding with you that's for your family and friends to tell you everything's going to be okay my job is to hold up the mirror and show you what you've done he said play with me for just a moment that's what he said play with me for just I bet that you had to have the last word in every argument check I bet you gave unwanted and unsolicited advice check and he said I bet when you had an argument you were always right which makes her always wrong check and now you expect me to feel sorry for you I don't feel sorry for her and he said while we've got this time together let me give you just a little more feedback and at this point I thought why not you know bring it I was deflated I probably had turned white or green I literally remember feeling like had been punched in the stomach he said I feel like I owe you one little bit more of feedback son I don't think you're going to graduate from this program he said you've got a South Carolina chip on your shoulder that's going to make it virtually impossible for you to absorb the kind of feedback I plan to give you so I don't think you're gonna get through past me was this quote he said but I promise you this for however long you're in this program if you'll take that time and figure out why the hell you had to do that to her you'll get your money's worth out of the program and do the rest of the world a great big favor whether you graduate or not and then he turned his back and he opened back up the Bible and began reading that's how was dismissed and as I walked out of his office just for good measure he began humming Amazing Grace so that night guess what I do call my friends they meet me at a bar in Northern Virginia we have more than a fair share to drink they collude with me they do exactly what I need them to do we agreed that the great dr. Harvey turned out to be the great hypocrite to claim to be religious to claim to want you to be vulnerable so he can help and when you are too poor metaphorical salt in the wound like he did was not only unprofessional it was unethical it was immoral everyone rallied around me what a jerk moved back to Charlotte thank goodness you only spent the money for one semester and not all the way through the program you know yes it's an expense but it could have been a lot more expensive and I was going to move back to Charlotte the next morning I woke up a little bit later than normal with some bloodshot eyes staring back at me and out loud I literally said he's right even when my friends were colluding with me like I wanted them to at the bar I knew there was something gnawing at me that would not let me go he was right not only did I admit that I realized that he knew me better in three and a half months than I knew myself that was a defining inflection point for me and that conversation stayed with me to this day I still experience emotion telling it dr. Harvey passed away in August of 2015 and he and I corresponded frequently and I told him about this article that is now a version of this talk that I was publishing and also a chapter for a book and how much I appreciated the greatest gift anyone had given me and he wrote me back actually his wife had to type the email but it was classic dr.