Inner Wholeness and Division

Where does Personal Executive Presence come from?

Inner wholeness and inner division

A powerful, well-rounded Personal Executive Presence (PEP) is sourced in inner wholeness. Conversely, the enemy of PEP is inner division.

Every human being has the potential for well-developed PEP. And yet it is easy to see that very few people have it. So what happened?

Inner division: the thief of PEP

A bit of self-reflection shows us that we are not always the same person. Have you ever really wanted to dig into a tub of ice cream, while also feeling a pull to put it back in the freezer? Have you ever wanted to speak up, and at the same time bit your tongue and held yourself back? We call this “being torn”. But what is being torn?

You are.

Of course we could say that your mind is being torn, or your feelings or your heart, or your conscience. But aren’t all those things a part of you? Are parts of you actually torn, or divided, or competing, or at war? With some contemplation we see that, yes, we are in fact innerly divided.

A well-known representation of this inner division is represented by the visual of a little angel on your right shoulder, counseling with sage, wholesome advice. And who inevitably pops up on your left shoulder to sweetly whisper his bad, but oh-so-immediately gratifying alternatives? The devil, a fallen, distorted angel with a matching distorted advice. But if we disappear these anthropomorphized images for a moment, we find that the conflict is still here; it’s inside us.

Abraham Lincoln had some strong words to say about inner division in his famous quote before the American Civil War broke out: “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” His pithy phrase echoed the words of Jesus: “Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and a house divided against a house falleth.” Evidently inner division, whether of countries or of humans, has been around forever.

While every human experiences inner divisions, their degree and impact on day-to-day functioning varies wildly between individuals. The more areas of the personality that are innerly divided, and the more deeply they are in conflict, the more difficult it is for a person to function effectively.

The leader with PEP functions from a below-average number and/or severity of inner divisions and conflicts, i.e. from a greater inner wholeness. The positive impact on their functioning is unmistakable. This relationship is depicted in Figure 1, which we unpack in much more detail in the post on the Three Zones of Leadership.

What is divided?

Ultimately, the division within you is between the Self (with a capital S) that is truly you, and a self that is not you, but mistakenly believed to be you. For example, every human being has value. Value is a fundamental, inevitable, inalienable, inherent, always-so, cannot-be-lost, human attribute. However, most of us walk around believing that we don’t have value. Or that it is limited, and dependent on outside factors or personal performance, and therefore debatable. So there is a division between your true Self that always knows it has complete value and a self that thinks it has at best some value, sometimes, based on your performance, or looks, or others’ opinions of you.

Imagine that you realize you have made an actual mistake. If you think you are a self whose value is conditional, you will believe that your mistake has decreased your value, or is even proof of your inherent lack of value. Depending on your coping mechanisms you may react with shame, denial, defensiveness, anger, worrying, working harder, depression, zoning out, hiding, or running away.

If, however, you know you are a Self whose value is inherent and inalienable, and that this fictitious, worthless self is a fiction, there is no inner division or opposition. From inner wholeness, you simply address the mistake and move on to the next thing. The emotional upheaval and reactive coping mechanisms simply don’t happen. While this may sound like an unrealistic fiction that's too good to be true, I can assure you it is not.

Examples of Inner Division

Let’s look at a few examples of common causes of ineffective leadership and their origin in inner division.

Procrastinating

The division is between the Self who knows what needs to be done, and a self who does not want to do it. This causes an inner tension, as if the Self and the self are pulling on opposite ends of a rope. The tension is usually diffused through an altogether different (and typically less difficult, less important) activity.

Example: I want to write this book vs. I don’t want to write this book because I’m afraid I will get stuck and feel like a failure; so I go vacuum the living room. A variant is paralysis by analysis: As long as I am gathering more information, I don’t have to take action and face the possibility of struggle, confusion, failure or criticism.

Perfectionism

Perfectionism is an attempt to not feel wrong or bad. Through excessively improving and tweaking, the hope is that there will not be the dreaded disapproval from a critic, be it inner or outer. The disapproval will make the self feel painfully wrong, flawed or bad. The inner division is between the Self that is fundamentally, inherently and unalterably perfect and good, and a self that is believed to be none of those, and needs to earn approval and prove its goodness.

This particular division is supported by much of our upbringing, culture and religion, and mixed up with confusion around personal responsibility for one’s actions. A practical level of resolution is to become very clear about the cost of perfection, to determine where it is actually worth this cost, and to forego perfection everywhere else. A deeper and uncommonly found level of resolution is to truly recognize the inherent perfection of your Self and everything else, freeing you to see and create (really, bring out) this perfection for the sheer beauty and pleasure of it.

Pulling for likes

Wanting to be liked is an ancient human impulse that consumes much mental and emotional bandwidth and time. The inner division is between the Self who knows what needs to be done, and a self who does not want to do it for fear of not being liked.

Example: not confronting an underperforming employee, not ending a product line that is a friend’s “baby”, appointing an unqualified board member because they tell you you’re brilliant. Favoritism is often a form of pulling for likes: your favorite makes your self feel good.

Not telling the truth

A devastating degrader of your personal power, self-esteem and reputation, lying reflects an inner division between the Self who acts according to what you know to be true vs. a self who acts according to something you know to be untrue but that your self thinks will get it what it wants (or avoid what it doesn’t want). Examples abound.

Putting up a front

It is an open secret that most of us feel different on the inside than we present on the outside. We may present as calm, confident, fun and on top of things, while our inner experience may be one of anxiety, insecurity, meaninglessness or plain boredom. The inner division here is actually between two selves: a self that feels bad vs. a self that pretends not to. The result is a chronic draining of energy to keep up appearances, the feeling of being insincere or even a fraud, and often a host of reactive, counterproductive behavior aimed at not feeling this mix of difficult feelings. Plus, you’re just not happy.

In PEP, your outer presentation is congruent with your inner state and experience; they match. Your outer presentation (outer EP) is a direct manifestation of your inner state and experience (inner EP). This is why we always work on the inner EP and outer EP simultaneously, so you don't exclusively polish up your outer EP into a fragile shiny shell.

While PEP is not some magical recipe for constant happiness, the reduced inner division that underlies it gives rise to much less interference with your natural state of peace, joy, confidence, vitality and contentment.

Denial

How often do we know what’s true but turn our head and pretend otherwise? Deeply unproductive in all aspects of life, not facing reality represents a division between the Self that knows the truth and a self who will not acknowledge it out of fear, confusion, apathy, resentment, stubbornness etc.

Competitiveness

Pervasive in business, competitiveness represents a division between the Self who is secure in their inherent fulness and sufficiency and a self who feels like they are not enough. Ironically, this is accurate; the confused self does not know inner riches and satisfaction, because they belong to the undivided true Self.

The Inner Critic

Perhaps the most devastating, painful and counterproductive inner division is that between your true Self with its authentic, inborn qualities and capacities vs. the self that repeats all the judgments, criticisms, warnings, injunctions and manipulations you have received from others throughout your life. Variously called the inner critic, the judge, the gremlin, or the superego, it is a collection of thoughts, voices, images and even physical postures and tensions. These have merged into a self that can spring up any moment to warn, scare and dissuade you from doing anything that falls outside your typical comfort zone. Don’t talk to that interesting person, don’t start that new business, don’t ask for a promotion, don’t try a new outfit, stay in your lane, do as you have done, don’t challenge the status quo, don’t show weakness, don’t cry, don’t be your Self, the list of do’s and especially don’ts goes on and on.

This whole inner activity can be understood as an attempt of this self to stay the same, to not grow, to not take risks. This was at times a sound approach when we were children, but it is hardly productive in business and personal development, where we want to grow and change. What’s worse, the seemingly helpful instructions and message tend to degrade in the same way as the comments section on social media: before you know it, all you’re getting are personal attacks that leave you deflated, anxious, angry or depressed. Who hasn’t told themselves that they were not good enough, not deserving, or stupid, unattractive, bad, broken, shameful, wrong? We’d never allow someone else to talk us that way, but we do it to ourselves all the time. More accurately, it is the self that has taken on the role of inner critic, talking loudly over your authentic Self’s still small voice.

Years of free play may have deeply engrained the inner critic, and completely freeing yourself from its stifling effects can be a long work. Fortunately, we can work in a targeted way on silencing the most dominant messages first, turning down the noise to where they no longer steer your actions.

The path to Inner Wholeness

If the examples above strike you as progressively more philosophical, psychological and spiritual in nature, they are. I have personally observed each of examples at play and worked with them in myself and with my clients. Inner divisions are nearly universal, but which ones most interfere with PEP is unique to each individual. In response, the work on recognizing, understanding and overcoming inner division is highly individualized. Moving from inner division to inner wholeness is an important part of our work on your PEP. Most exciting to me (and to my clients!) is that the results can be life-changing and extend well beyond the work environment into all areas of life, including personal relationships, health, spirituality, and, dare I say it, overall personal happiness.