I’ve made a new friend. Well, sort of. I haven’t ever actually met him and I don’t know an awful lot about him but  I do know he’s called Russell Bishop and he writes blogs on the Huffington Post and I tend to agree with what he writes. This is what the HP says about him:

Russell Bishop is an Educational Psychologist, author, executive coach and management consultant, based in Santa Barbara California.

Anyway I commented on his post and he quoted me in the next one he wrote which, in my book, means we are close personal friends. Here it is:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/russell-bishop/who-is-to-blame-for-this-_b_757320.html

I refer yet again to Robert Cialdini’s  bestseller: Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion. The Law of Reciprocity in influencing states that if someone gives me something I want to return the favour. As I say – close personal friends.

So I am returning the favour and quoting Mr Bishop (May I call you Russell yet?) as I ponder why we get so fired up about what is wrong with everyone else instead of looking inwards when things go wrong in our world.

Russell says:

We seem to have devolved into to a nation of six-year-olds, all too willing to get on the floor, the stage or the TV program, wailing and flailing as though that were going to fix anything. The real problem with all this is that some of those wailing and flailing actually care about something, and yet for all the yelling, screaming and blaming, we’re still stuck with the “same old same old.”…. where do you start when things aren’t going the way you want them to go? Of course, most people look to find the fault or issue somewhere else. My advice: start with your own self and ask a simple question: what can you do that would make a positive difference requiring no one’s permission other than your own?

He goes on to quote cartoonist Walt Kelly, in The Best of Pogo:

There is no need to sally forth, for it remains true that those things which make us human are, curiously enough, always close at hand. Resolve, then, that on this very ground, with small flags waving and tiny blasts of tiny trumpets, we shall meet the enemy, and not only may he be ours, he may be us.

I think this is a great quote and I am wholeheartedly in favour of people taking personal responsibility for their lives and the footprint they make in the world.

Then why is it so nice to be quoted on a blog and find agreement across the ocean with someone I have never met and probably never will?

And so we come to the paradox

Another rule of influencing is The Law of Social Approval. If lots of other people think the same about my autonomous, clearly thought out, originally coined values, and vision….then maybe I’m not alone – I can be cosy in my group of original thinkers who think the same as me.

If only those outside the group agreed with us …. they’re the ones to blame for stuff going wrong….aren’t they?