Self and Other Centered

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

Physical, Thinking, Emotional, Spiritual

Defining Self Centered, Defining Other Centered, Self and Other Centered Being the Balance and Unconscious of Each Other, Going From Self to Other Centered, Going From Other to Self Centered, Half of the Types Being Self Centered and the Other Half Being Other Centered

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(Revised and Edited For Easier Readability and Additional Clarity)

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 them, that's what's reinforced in America; 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. Other-centered means you're looking at the other person, you're listening to them, you're feeling them, you're taking them in, thinking about them and 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 going to 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. Then there's self-centered and what the self-centered person does is that they behave in a way where they get something that is good for them and 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 an other-centered type, if you do things for other people and you do enough of that, then you start becoming self-centered and you become balanced.

The complication is that the other-centered types 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 going to get them what they actually want. But they've gotten satisfaction being self-centered so they think that more of the same is going give them more and more satisfaction. It's not going to work. And the other-centered people can like go on endlessly about doing things for other people and sooner or later they're going to 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. The fun part about it is if you've seen any of our other videos on what a person's like, you'd know a person has a conscious mind and an unconscious mind. And if their conscious type (associated with their conscious mind) is self-centered, that means their unconscious type (associated with their unconscious mind) is other-centered. Or if they're other-centered consciously, they'd be self-centered unconsciously.  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 an other-centered person and you want to 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 and 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? Why don't you start asking them 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 them.

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 because the culture is naturally teaching you how to be other-centered. So if you eat really good food and are going to give food to other people or do something, make sure 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 self-centered from other countries, then reverse that process. I think it's really that simple. Have a great time.