Paradoxes explained by the congress of selves

I think this piece of text (from Pascal Boyer's "How minds make societies") might have transformed the way I think about people more than any other.

People are not single, integrated units. We're far more complex than that. I think there are many better ways to think about what a person is, and one of the most useful is to think of us as a congress of personalities.

It goes a long way to explaining what seem to be baffling inconsistencies in our behaviour. When it seems like your actions don't align with your pre-stated intentions it's easy to get frustrated with yourself, and confused as to the cause. If you think of yourself as a congress, instead, you might come to realise that The Planner has goals and aspirations not shared by The Sloth. Thus, rather than judging yourself too harshly, you can instead encourage The Planner to think more about how The Sloth is motivated, and create plans which are more likely to succeed.

Another area of life that is illuminated by thinking of oneself as a congress is the seemingly paradoxical aspects of high performance. To become an elite performer in sport, for example, you have to care more about your outcome than anyone else. The desire to win has to be incredibly strong, since it's a necessary source of motivation to train harder than nearly anyone else.

Paradoxically, then, when it comes time to actually perform in the moment, it's best not to care about the outcome at all. Nothing is more likely to cause an athlete to 'choke' than thinking about the win before it's happened. Thus, we find a situation where an elite athlete has to care more about the outcome than anyone, but also not care at all.

When you think of people as a congress of personalities (IE, more like a group of people) paradoxes of this sort are often resolved by thinking about which "individual" within your congress each side of the paradox applies to.

For example, in the Thought Leaders community we talk about the paradox of sales; the best salespeople know that it’s all about the money, but not about the money at all.

It’s all about the money because if you’re going to grow your revenue, you’ve gotta be doggedly single-minded to make it happen.

It’s not about the money at all, because salespeople who are just in it for the money are more repellent to clients than citronella to insects.

So how does one hold these two opposing truths at once?

Quite simply: the personality in them that plans their calendar, and mines their database, and collates lists of people to call, is all about the money.

Conversely, the personality in them that sits with a potential client, empathises with them, workshops a solution and then makes the offer, is not about the money at all.

No paradox. Just different people doing their job best.