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NICHOLAS BOOTHMAN
attribute: only positive ones turned upside down by
time and circumstance. Jackson told me he was shy.
His mother called him shy when he was growing up.
“Oh yes Jackson’s such a shy boy.” “Oh Jackson. Stop
being so shy!” Well jeepers. Hearing this over and over,
the seeds are sown. When Jackson discovers there’s no
such thing as shy—that it’s not a natural-born attribute
—and that he’s actually “cautious and reserved,”
which are good things, his negative self-esteem stops
holding him back and he’s able to move along a
different, stronger path.
“People say I’m negative” Mehdi explained, “I’ll be
in a meeting and someone comes up with a great idea
and I get mad that I didn’t come up with an idea like
that myself.” I pointed out that he was probably
defining “competitive” not “negative”. He was
relieved to get closer to his true self.
March 2001.
A Canadian organization called WRED, Women
and Rural Economic Development, contacts me to
produce a program to reveal hidden strengths in
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