Bob Proctor indicates that image above is the most important concept he has EVER encountered. It’s called “STICKPERSON.”

And as is so seemingly important these days (at least here in Seattle) – you are more than free to attach the gender pronouns which you deem most appropriate to … IT.

Why? Because one of the other main tenants to both the Bob authoring this piece and the Bob whose Chairs the Proctor Gallagher Institute – at bedrock we are all the same.

This is to say specifically: “As far as we know, we are God’s highest form of being!”

Bob incorporates STICKPERSON into all of his teachings about human success and achievement.

Though initially deemed slightly comical, Bob nevertheless was able to use STICKPERSON’s assistance to woo a 50/50 partnership with a gal who started her career on Wall Street and culminated her 22-year banking and securities law career at Seattle’s Davis Wright Tremaine LLP – Sandy Gallagher.

Setting aside the difficulties which lawyers generally advise of our own clients as to the perils of a 50/50 partnership … and hell, we all know that 1/2 the marriages end in divorce as had too did Sandy’s when she became habituated to STICKPERSON.

After a year and a half long “deposition” of STICKPERSON, I too have fallen in love with this He, She, Zie, thing-a-majie.

In fact, PGI believes it to be “The Magi.”

To this, I always kind of think of Robin William’s voice talents in Disney’s original Aladdin. And truth be told, that’s not just kind of the point … it is the point.

In many ways the PGI’s 50/50 partnership division is a very apt indication of the very “visage” of STICKPERSON.

So let’s start with that picture and then – instead of relating it to the constitution of Proctor Gallagher Institute (“PGI”) – look beyond that to how STICKPERSON relates overall to our world.

Basically, there are 3 – yes, only three – component parts: Thoughts, Beliefs (based on Feelings), & Actions.

STICKPERSON was discovered by Bob many years ago after stepping up and introducing himself to the speaker who immediately he “knew that he knew what he was talking about … God Bless him he’s gone now …” – Leland Val Vandewall.

The insight that Val Vandewall related to Bob was: “Nobody has ever seen the mind.”

And that was a problem, see instead of the idea that the mind is a brain, the mind transcends the brain which is merely a “switching station.”

“Say what???”

Well think about it, we each have a brain, we each have a heart, most folks have limbs, and we all have 2, 3 (or more) names to which we try to wrap it all together … “crown to sole.”

But, what Val Vandewall was able to recognize was the absolute genius of a precocious, holistic doctor from San Antonio, Texas who around 1934 originated this figure.

Dr. Thurman Fleet realized that if we were having problems in the body, somewhere “upstream” there was a problem in the mind.

By way of historical diversion to gain historical perspective, let’s not fail to notice that Sigmund Freud’s most influential spanned the century before proceeded through the end of The Great War (WW I) and culminated toward the rise of Totalitarianism with his beginning and mid and endpoint publications respectively being: Studies on Hysteria (1895); Introduction to Psychoanalysis (1917); and Moses and Monotheism (1939).

Here, it MAY be “inappropriate” to also trace the history of the relationship between Freud and his protégé Carl Jung. But it is certainly also worth noting that Abraham Maslow’s “Hierarchy of Needs” around 1954.

What was Maslow’s later contribution? It was the recognition and realization of 3 – yes, there’s that magic number three again – groups of needs: Physical; Psychological; and Self-Actualization.  

Upshot, the STICKPERSON is a model of the mind.  And Bob Proctor, who – God willing – will cross the threshold of his 60th year studying and teaching human success and achievement, recognizes this model as the high-water mark in psychological understanding because it is not just relatively simple … it’s relatably simple.

This is critical. Simplicity not only sells; it helps order the mind … and ultimately that is what the teachings of the PGI is all about.

Securing order in one’s mind, so that one may create their most abundant results.

So, here’s the explanatory flow through.

There are two circles connected by a spine and of these two circles the larger top circle is divided into half.

The top half represents the conscious mind and the bottom half represents the subconscious mind.

As an important aside, it is important to not get fixated on the idea of an exacting representation.

PGI consultants are assured that “somewhere in brain plasticity studies” it is bandied about that our conscious mind controls perhaps as much as 2-4% of or mind with the remaining 96-98% being what the subconscious “controls.”

Personally, I find these numbers to be dubious. And that is not so much because I think the conscious mind is being short-changed. No, instead I believe that this woefully underestimates the strength of the subconscious mind.

Regardless of percentages then, the conscious mind is where the “THINKING” occurs and the subconscious mind is where the “FEELING” happens.

Also, the subconscious mind is where all the HABITS and PROGRAMED RESPONSES to life occurs.

So, if we want to change our results, we need to change our THINKING, which we do by means of a COMMITTED DECISION.

Then, we change or FEELINGS through REPETITION of … ACTIONS – here think of why as (legal) professionals we call our business “PRACTICES.”

With the end, due to the compounding of repetitive actions, creates our RESULTS.

Heck that’s a cakewalk, right? Well, maybe if you are Marie Antoinette at the beginning of the French Revolution.[3]

And that’s kind of the point, we are habituated to not stick our heads out.

It is that small, little vertical line that separates those who could have been from those who are.

You see, if you are going to go after your dreams and make them a reality … you have to have the temerity to step out and do it!

Most people do not!

And, that is unfortunate. It’s precisely why that line in the movie Wall Street has so much resonance…

“People are like sheep, and sheep get slaughtered.”[4]

As lawyers, I feel we have not only a duty to the sheep, but a duty to ourselves not to be goaded into acting like one.

Additionally, I know that the legal process, while in many areas is broken down, is not broken.

But just as certainly, if we are not damn careful … there will be outside people(s) who fumblingly think they can better “run the show” and they will fail.

Perhaps the biggest takeaway from the stickperson occurs when we apply it not to an individual’s “constitution”, but rather to the “Constitution” of our body politic.

We will not make improved changes unless and until both sides are able to harmonize … and then swing into action.

We have seen what is manifest from the failure to do so before … and whether the “fight” is male v. female; North v. South (Lincoln); Black v. White (King Jr.); Democracy v. Communism (Kennedy); and now the fights of the day Male v. Female; or Far Right v. Far Left and Far East v. Far West …

We need to be able to appreciate and incorporate “the other.”

WHY? BECAUSE IF, …

We fail to do so at not just the other’s peril … but “our own” as well!

And of course, we must then take one step further to realize we don’t want to see ourselves as “the other” – though that is exactly what we fear “out there.” And if not on purpose, ultimately results in a completely different form of death.[5]

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[1] This is an intentional reversal of the pairing from “sole to crown” in Edward Arlington Robinson’s poem Richard Cory. See [HERE].

[2] Simon & Garfunkle’s adaption of Richard Cory. See [HERE].

[3] This is a “hat tip” to the Minneapolis neighborhood of my youth – Edina, Minnesota.

[4] See this clip which suggests one should cut away one’s feelings [HERE].

[5] What happens when one’s purpose, vision & goals are focused on nothing more than the “tangible results of money”? See [HERE].