PSYCHOLOGY
part of you has the wisdom that your rational system doesn’t know about. That wisdom is continuously evaluat- ing where you are in life.
SP: The good feeling. DR. EPSTEIN: Right, the good feel- ing. But it can be a very evasive, prolonged reaction that you can’t connect with anything. Emotions we can connect with their sources. But moods we often cannot. Somebody put it this way: moods are to emotions like the tides are to the waves. So, you lose the connection. Your emotions are a reaction to so-and-so did this, or this happened and this is the way I react. Your moods take into account a whole lot of things that have hap- pened and your anticipation of your long-term future. What I am saying is that you can’t beat the system. If you try to be ultimately rational – in a way that denies the part of you that is still reacting to the world and figuring out where you are in it – and controlling your moods, it just isn’t going to work. Your moods will undo you.
SP: You are talking about being flex- ibly irrational...or flexibly rational. DR. EPSTEIN: To recognize, ratio- nally, that we are emotional, intuitive creatures as well as having a logical mind.
SP: Why do you think people are so interested in the subject of success? DR. EPSTEIN: I think there are two reasons, which are absolutely differ- ent. I think that there are people who, in conventional terms, want to make more money, have more power, have greater prestige. Anything that can help them do that, they want to do. I think that there are a lot of others who are very concerned with what success really is, and ask if they are caught in a misguided pursuit. They want to take a fresh look at it. They recognize that what they have been taught about I.Q., rationality, and so on isn’t quite right. These may be some very suc- cessful people in conventional terms who realize that something is wrong.
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They have always known that, but haven’t taken the time to think about it carefully. They want more informa- tion on it.
SP: What part does self-esteem play in success? DR. EPSTEIN: Again, I will have to say that there are two levels of self- esteem. One is in your rational mind. You can say, “Gee, I am making $5 million a year and I am very respected by my colleagues and I am very good at what I do. I am a great person. My self-esteem is very high.” But at the emotional level is the second mind – the mind that responds to experience and doesn’t take too seriously what the rational mind says. It may see it differently. If the person does not portray an image of real confidence and security, if he or she is easily threatened, is quick to take offense. If a person says, “I am too important to trifle with people like you.” This very view that one is important – and is susceptible to threat because of one’s importance – is an indication of low self-esteem in the second mind. If people feel really secure, they would not be that defensive. They could learn from other people, they would be more interested in other people, and they would not need to aggrandize themselves. You can have absolutely opposite levels of self- esteem in one or the other of the two minds. The one that is going to be important is the feeling mind, or the experiential mind. Because one’s feelings of self-ac- ceptance relate to the deepest levels of the self, they will eventually prob- ably impact other kinds of success, as well. That person will be a different person: he will be less relaxed, will get where he or she is going in a different way if it is through a power orienta- tion rather than being spontaneous, warm, and loving, and so on. There are different ways of getting ahead in the world. Some ways may cost the individual who gets ahead a tremen- dous price. Others may be gratifying.
SP: When you mentioned that our society’s interest in success is gener- ally money, prestige, and power, do you think this applies equally to men and women? DR. EPSTEIN: Of course, it is apply- ing more and more to women. I think they have a mixed blessing in the re- cent emphasis on equality with men. They ought to take a good look at whether they want to buy into what man’s world has made for men. There may be some very important disad- vantages as well as advantages. The issue for women, as I see it, is how to take what is worthwhile in the model and be sure they are treated with equal dignity and advantage – but not get so desperate to copy the ad- vantages men have that they blindly buy into a system that is destructive in lots of ways.
SP: Over the long run, I think to be a professional who has achieved suc- cess means giving service to someone else over the long haul and not just being out for number one. DR. EPSTEIN: Making a lot of money for its own sake will work for some people – and maybe they make enough so that they don’t need it over the long haul, and can invest it. However, many people who do extremely well don’t do that with their money at all. I wonder if people are becoming more aware of thinking of success in terms of fulfillment instead of only making a buck. And recogniz- ing that they can do both – fulfilling themselves and being a human being that other people respond to. At the time of sweat shops in Eng- land, they were using little children for labor. There really was a great belief that, to make a profit, you had to underprivilege other people. Now we are saying that at least professional salespeople aren’t thinking that way at all. They are thinking that you get ahead by doing worthwhile things for one another.
SP: Can you test for success? DR. EPSTEIN: Well, I can test for
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