While getting him awake is not often a problem, his grandparents say, getting his feet on the floor usually is. He loves to lay in bed, eyes wide open, eyes very active in fact. Looking first in one direction, then another, though almost never at you. Ask him what he’s doing, and you are inviting a minor Vesuvius of emotion, they report. “You are interrupting my story!” they say he’ll protest. It is clear that their grandson does not like his story-making interrupted. And I’ve come to realize that few of us do.

I’m going to assume that most of the emotion is being generated by his right hemisphere, which is irritated that its understanding of what the left side of his brain is currently up to has been disrupted. That’s because for a lot of things, until the left side of our brain supplies an explanation, the right side is left pretty much without one. This, at least, is what neuroscientist Michael Gazzaniga suggested years ago, and continues to suggest, with his theory of the interpreter.

Residing in the left hemisphere—or so “split brain” expert Gazzaniga concluded, as he explained (among many other places) in The Mind’s Past (page 174)—“The interpreter constantly establishes a running narrative of our actions, emotions, thoughts, and dreams. It is the glue that keeps our story unified and creates our sense of being a coherent, rational agent. It brings to our bag of individual instincts the illusion that we are something other than what we are. It builds our theories about our own life, and these narratives of our past behavior seep into our awareness.”

Ever since reading Dr. Gazzaniga’s theory of the interpreter, I’ve tended to tell anyone curious about what I do professionally that I’m a deadly serious student of the stories people tell themselves and others to explain who they are. You can notice this persistent thread running through nearly all of our models, books and assessment tools here at Brain Me Up. And few things interest me more than the “core” story people tell about themselves.

I’ve concluded that there aren’t very many core stories. And that understanding what your core story is and admitting to its realities, and constantly assessing when and where it makes sense to submit to guidance from your core story, are crucial to being an effective human. (Of course, not every core story equips its user to know or even to care whether they are an effective human as well as some core stories do.)

Any scholar or researcher who professes to be a “developmental” person, following how one person over time and how all persons over the generational expanses of time, assemble and enable and sometimes limit their personal qualities and skills, is hard at work seeking to understand the stories people tell themselves and others in an effort to explain who they are.

Years ago, I was introduced to the pioneering, self-described “biopsychosocial” theory of self-explanatory storytelling of the late Clare W. Graves, the American psychologist. I’ve yet to discover a better model. So I’ve spent much of my career seeking to make his model—which is sometimes called “the theory of everything” and can quickly overload anyone who comes to it just wanting to know a little bit about a few things—more accessible to ordinary souls.

I love all my model-children equally, but first among equals is the schematic that Dr. Paul Kordis and I put together a couple of decades ago and still continue to expand. That would be the water creatures model that was the focus of our book, Strategy of the Dolphin.

The users of the Carp story explain themselves to themselves as perennial victims. They see the world as being against them, and much of the time, they can be forgiven for thinking so. Life is hard. There aren’t a lot of opportunities to bootstrap one’s way upward economically, socially and culturally. There are more Carp storytellers on earth than any other kind. The Carp story reeks with vulnerability. Where it is heavily in use, there is often much resentment and anger and suffering. Can IEDs, suicide bombers, child and spousal abuse, public protests that turn bloody and political Tea Parties that turn shrill and accusatory be far behind?

Next comes the Shark storyteller. The user of the Shark story usually feels entitled. And often for good reason. They hold most of the cards and many of the marbles. The easiest way to learn how to tell the Shark story is to be the daughter or son of someone who told it well. In the 21st Century, the most formidable redoubt of the Shark storyteller is the major corporation and governments and other agglomerates (like universities) that act like one. It is important to the Shark story user to appear confident, in the know, on top of things, and really a pretty good Jane or Joe. Funny thing, though, how often Shark waters turn bloody, good Jane, good Joe or not.

Someone who isn’t forced by dire life circumstances to use the Carp story and who has the sensibilities to understand what a dead-end the Shark story tends to be often gravitates toward a much more fructiferous story. In fact, it sometimes seems to me like the brain has suddenly discovered itself when it arrives at the ability to tell this next story. That’s because, welcome improvement that it is, the new story and its user soon seem to be surrounded by wretched excess. Not by money, necessarily, although users of this story often do well enough. But a wretched excess of ideas, possibilities, symbols, connections and desires. Originally, Dr. Kordis and I called this the Pseudo-Enlightened Carp story. But we eventually came to realize that this was probably too harsh and an unnecessary diversion.

Because in being censorious of the premature assumption by persons suddenly able to tell this story that they have arrived at enlightenment, we were probably steering people away from a realization that they are very close now—psychologically, operationally—to a radically new, fecund, competent kind of story that people on the planet increasingly needed to hear and to which they need to self-adapt.

And so we changed the name of this new story to First Dolphin. It is only a beginning, important as it turns out to be. Truth be known and acknowledged, the First Dolphin story is the story being told of themselves by many of the people who are now feverishly connecting through Facebook and Twitter, who are raising the alarums about global ecological injury, who are scanning the heavens for signs of other intelligent “beings” in the universe, who are protesting against the treatment of the Carp storytellers and the abuses of the Shark storytellers and propagating the desire for a fairer, safer, more peaceful world.

Users of the First Dolphin story are nowhere near being able to live up to all their precepts or deliver on all their promises. But their story is a great improvement. And a critical spawning grounds. Already, at Brain Me Up, we are tracking two additional stories that have grown from the First Dolphin’s: the stories of the Prime Dolphin and of the Deep See Change Dolphin. It is one of these stories that, if the audacious theories of The Singulatarians come to pass, is most likely going to be the leading candidate for implantation in the “mind” of the artificial intelligence that they are predicting is destined to exceed our own.

But enough for now. If you’d like to know which of these stories you currently use to explain to yourself and others who you are—well, that’s the intended function of our newest Brain Me Up assessment. It’s called the Yo!Dolphin!™ Worldview Survey. Go here to know more. Be assured, our purpose is helping you understand and put to good use your life-story-making, not interrupt it, whether you are lying in bed musing about it or have your feet on the floor.

Dear Stymied Sojourner:

There’s a lot more to your Yo!Dolphin! report than uplifting words. There are pointed, plain-spoken suggestions for doing something different in your report, too. A lot of suggestions. So keep reading.

And here are other observations I often offer to people who feel that their nose has just run smack into an immovable force:

1. Avoid being alone. In most cases, being with others brings its own kind of healing. Choose your companions with care, putting companions who care about you at the top of the list. But you don’t have to bare your soul and your troubles to everyone around you. Simply being with others even in a casual setting can help push back the night.

2. Keep things simple, at least for now. Don’t try to fix everything at once. And don’t spend a lot of time trying to forecast the future. Brick-wall times in our lives are when things come apart. Our first instinct is to attempt to mend them, using what we know, what we have left, what we are comfortable with. What we try may work immediately, but often it doesn’t. Right now, think survival, not perfection. Think one step at a time, not the whole race.

3. Assign a small part of yourself—that is, your conscious, rational, thinking being—to monitor what is being felt as opposed to what is being thought out. So much of what we think we think isn’t thought out at all. This is “felt” information that comes to us from deep in our brain. The “felt” stuff causes us to believe we know all kinds of stuff, even when we are staring at evidence that what we are sure we know is dead wrong! It is entirely possible that the need to challenge some of your “felt” knowledge is a major cause of your brick-wall feelings. Write down your suspicions about feelings that aren’t right, aren’t true, aren’t helpful.

4. Take care of yourself from the bottom of the food chain up. That is, look after your Carp nature first, then your Shark nature, and only then your Dolphin natures. If any of these personas of yours feels (there’s those feelings again!) threatened, it will sabotage realities for the personas “higher up.” Your Carp nature needs stability, family, security, the day-to-day stuff. Be sure it has it. Your Shark nature needs to feel some autonomy, some input into decision-making, a chance to win. Look for ways it can do so. Your higher Dolphin natures need you to heal, once and for all. And stay out of the shark pool. And grow more comfortable with changes in your life and world. But remember: ironically, a bold Dophin first requires a bold Shark and a bold Carp, all in the same brain/mind: yours!

5. Do things. Really do them. In the early stages of dolphin-hood, there is an Achilles heel quality to our thinking. As our brain/mind rushes to embrace an expanded new sense of enlightenment and empowerment, it fools us into thinking that all we need to do to make something true and real is to imagine that it is so. And that can be so very, very destructive. So misleading. So wasteful. So untrue. So personally dangerous. The world is mysterious, yes. The world is amazing, yes. But the world is still the world, and it has its ways and its rules, its priorities and its requirements. You will ignore them to your peril. If you want to walk on fire, you better be dead-sure that you first take the laws of physics into account.

6. Be careful of your gurus. Your personal coaches. Your therapists. Can they be useful? You bet. Can they also hurt you? They can. Use the caveat emptor rule of consumerism: if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. If your potential professional helper doesn’t appear to be walking the talk, she or he probably can’t help you do it either. So choose with care. Let the Dolphin part of your brain/mind make the choice by asking to see the evidence that the coach, therapist, clergyperson or whomever you are considering as a guide and sounding board seems … well, the best word I can think of is “competent.” People who are going to help you get your act together should pretty much have theirs together.

7. Understand that brick-wall times usually pass quickly, so we need to put them to good use. When you feel that your world has come apart, accept that it probably has. Who you are has once again become an open question. There will be no better time to ask yourself, “Is who I have been who I really want to be?” “Is who I have been who I was aiming to be?” “Is who I have been who I am really intended to be?” At first, such questions can seem impervious to answers. But they’ll come if you keep asking. And if it seems overpowering, remember that all you are doing is asking. You aren’t committing. Not yet. And if you choose not to, not ever. So don’t accept the fear. Embrace the spirit of the inquiry and see where it can lead.

8. You described yourself as “someone who has imagination, a big creative spirit and lots of energy.” Wow! That’s a lot of expectation to lay on a wounded, frightened soul. Let me suggest this: Be content for a while (for how long is your call) at being someone who doesn’t require that her imagination be on duty 24/7. Give it a break. Just be in the moment (I know that as a First Dolphin worldview user you know how to do this!). Forget changing the world, as big creative spirits are always see themselves doing. Find little things you can change now. Changes that can be useful to you. Changes that will bring you some stability, some solace, some leverage. And turn down the energy level. For the moment, run low-key, low voltage. Feel what it is like to let the universe run itself. Then, over time, ramp back up in all these areas to a point where it helps you feel confident, on purpose, ready to resume the journey at the pace and toward the goals you were created to pursue.

So what’s the first thing I’d suggest you do: Go eat. Not at home. Go out. Nourish yourself with good food, competently prepared. If you can find someone to share it with, do. If you can’t, then enjoy yourself as your own company. Be sure to do it in an exciting location. Why? Simply to remind yourself that there’s an amazing world out there. And that you are an amazing part of it. It is a world that never ceases to change. Hitting brick walls is merely a remainder that the world is moving on and that we don’t want to be left behind.

All best wishes to you!

I read your blog with interest and must tell you that [we] are also using the dolphin as a symbol of assertive and positive behavior. It’s been a hard slog though as the number and position of sharks in our organisation is significant. That said, it has dramatically shaped smaller teams within the organisation and started to create a culture that revolves more around how be interact with one another. We hear in our corridors now, ‘Mate, I think you’re being a bit sharky, how about we look at this differently?’ or ‘Come on, stop carping, let’s come up with some ideas and solutions to change things.’ It is slowly helping move us from a reactive, stressful organisation to one that is proactive, open to ideas and able to cope with change.

It is however a constant struggle, for the generational change required is immense. This organisation has traditionally rewarded sharks in the mistaken belief they get things done. It’s that old business adage, ‘I don’t care, just do what I say,’ regardless of the issues at hand. So there is a struggle between the dolphin change agents and the sharks, who are threatened by change and wish to retain the status quo. After all that is all they know and own their success to.

Nevertheless, we are trying and in our division, Information Technology Services, we have a leadership program that all staff must participant in. The 200-odd staff in our division all know that they should be dolphins, some units are even have a Carp Blanche Friday Lunch …purpose: if you got anything negative to say that’s the time to do it. It’s a fun way to get rid of the stress of the week and move on to being a dolphin again. It’s also a great laugh.

We are dominated by sharks in this organisation and that remains an issue. Strangely, a shark is one of the big supporters of the scheme due to the need to improve morale as a core work requirement.

He sees it as a win for him, but has become frustrated because the culture it has generated has worked against him. We have linked this into team development, and so its success is better measured in regard to how staff work in teams and how they approach tasks as a team. It is linked with other concepts such as building high performing teams, leadership, personal development, creating a learning organisation and assertive behavior. We started this whole exercise as a means to allow staff to cope with major change (both structural and process) within the division and to improve our ability to work within small and large team environments including, cross functional group communication.

The upshot is that management have in some ways created a beast they can’t control and are having some difficulty coming to terms with the change. Staff are forming what we call bubbles of leadership, the principle being that as the culture boils the bubbles rise to the top. Dophins, carps and sharks make up an important part of the process. We push dolphin-like behaviors, gang up on sharks and manage/eat carps. It has had some interesting side affects. People are finding their voice, they are questioning and being proactive with their input. People are also questioning what type of organisation we want to work in and to a large extent many are starting to feel like they must move on to create the culture they believe in elsewhere. The pressure for change began from the top but is now being facilitated from the bottom.

It is by no means perfect and is currently in a state of flux. We are yet to move to a new beginning and resistance is starting to come from above. Conversely, individuals who have suppressed real leadership ability are asserting themselves and moving on or up.

My role: I was selected with two others from internal staff to take on a training role within the organisation. One, to allow us to perpetuate the ideas and concepts from an internal perceptive and, two, to cut the cost of external training. We do this for no extra pay, but because we believe that we can make a positive contribution to the organisation and make it a great place to work. Along with that, I find it personally rewarding, and I keep learning everyday as a result.

It’s all about leadership as an individual. Being accountable for your future and the future of those around you. Knowing that your actions and behavior make a difference everyday not just the nuts and bolts of your work, but what you think, how you think what you say, and how you say it. To be honest we have created and achieved far more innovative and constructive solutions as a result. Everybody knows what a dolphin, carp and shark is; it’s become a touchstone to be assertive about behaviors and expectations.

The University sees what we do as tree-hugging and so we are fighting to keep the momentum up. The sharks are circling and they are extremely powerful and large. The end result will be we win and help them win by improving the environment and kick goals, or we leave and start afresh somewhere else. Sometimes a dolphin needs to cut their losses and move to warmer waters.

In broader sense, the University also has a highly successful leadership program which widely promotes Dolphin Thinking throughout the organisation, among other things. It’s amazing how this program has affected people, and helped them feel empowered about their jobs, in some cases inspiring them to move forward with their lives. These people tend to become a bit of a beacon within their areas. A good example is a women I did the program with who has since left to become a script writer, turning her yearning into her profession.

Copies of Paul Kordis’s and my dolphin book, are available here: “ Strategy of the Dolphin®: Scoring a Win in a Chaotic World ” or “ Strategy of the Dolphin®: Scoring a Win in a Chaotic World ”

Now the test of whether this kind of service is worth a moist Fig Newton is always whether anything shows up when you type in your own name.

Fortunately, www.findarticles.com has a few entries mentioning your favorite blog personality or you wouldn’t be hearing anything about it to begin with.

The mention I like best is in an article I’d forgotten. I quote from it not because it spelled my name correctly but because I’ve always been intrigued by the activities it described. So if you’ll indulge me a moment of nostalga, here are a few paragraphs from my only known appearance in Nursing Management. The article is by a Navy captain, Jane Swanson:

“ONCE UPON A time…I became the Director of Nursing Service for a group of 10 clinics spread across three states covering over 984 driving miles. Within 3 months of my taking the position, the clinics were consolidated under a large hospital and became hospital-sponsored ambulatory care clinics. To meet the requirement to provide the same quality of care across all practice settings, we had to hire clinical nurses for the five larger clinics.

“None of the nurses who applied had ever worked in ambulatory care. Most came from hospital backgrounds and had cared for patients who required specific nursing tasks for a finite period of time. The very different demands of an ambulatory setting proved challenging. Many of the nurses experienced frustration, feelings of inadequacy, role confusion and burnout. Staff turnover was high….

“About this time, a staff development program using an analogy from Dudley Lynch’s [and Paul Kordis's] book, Strategy of the Dolphin, generated much interest and good-natured kidding.

“A carp symbolized codependent behavior, a shark represented aggressive behavior and a dolphin stood for the ability to cope and excel in a changing environment. ‘Dolphins’ like a challenge and are able to thrive in a tough environment. They are expert at reading the currents of organizational attitudes, searching for clues and monitoring developments. They are very adaptable, swim well in constantly changing water, float in any current, dive in any pool. Being both team players and self-reliant, dolphins can coordinate actions or act completely alone. If things aren’t working, dolphins will change tactics until something does work.

“Dolphin behavior around sharks is legendary. Using their intelligence and strong will, they can be deadly to the sharks. Bite them to death? Oh, no! Dolphins circle and ram, circle and ram. Using their bulbous noses as amphibious bludgeons, they methodically crush a shark’s rib cage until the aggressive creature sinks helplessly to the bottom.

“The staff began to identify with dolphin behavior. As they noted, most behaviors in the work environment related to carps and sharks. It became clear that the dolphin’s strategy is more than an approach to positive thinking. It is a way to think collaboratively.

“On their own, the staff adopted a dolphin emblem for those who had done something especially noteworthy and recognized someone monthly. (Also, plastic carps and sharks appeared mysteriously around the clinic from time to time on various desks.) After workshops in a variety of clinics with all the staff, the FISH framework became well known. Staff meetings were sprinkled with: ‘Are you carping?’ or ‘You’re swimming like a dolphin’ or ‘Ouch, the sharks are out today.’ In the end, the staff did start to trust one another. Communication improved, all staff became involved, cooperation increased and healthy laughter was heard once again. A team with a common goal of quality patient care and mutual respect for each other emerged.”

At the time, Capt. Swanson was director of ambulatory nursing at National Naval Medical Center Bethesda in Maryland.

Her bio note added: “The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of the Department of the Navy, Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government.”

Obviously, Capt. Swanson knows her way around the shark pool.

To read the entire article, go here: Building a successful team through collaboration