❌ Social Conditioning Detox!!!
😱 Why nearly everything you believe to be true is wrong
Is your worldview based on reality?
Or is your worldview based on what you’ve been conditioned to believe is your reality?
Multipotentialites are the most creatively talented people on the planet.
We are visionaries.
History is littered with innovations, art, culture and philosophy of divergent thinking multipotentialites.
Yet the irony is we are the people least likely to share our ideas with the world.
Why?
It’s because we were socially conditioned into believing we were broken.
Simply because our brain is wired differently.
As kids, we were repeatedly told we were not living up to the expectations of the neurotypical society.
It is estimated by researchers that by age 10, kids with ADHD will have been exposed to 20,000 more negative messages from parents, teachers, and society.
This is also true for all multipotentialite kids (ASD, OCD, HSP, Dyslexics, BPD etc)
To free ourselves from our social conditioning, we must first understand it.
“Social conditioning is the sociological process of training individuals in a society to respond in a manner approved by society in general and peer groups within society.”
It’s the process where ideas, concepts and beliefs of society are ingrained into our psyche.
It is:
Conventional wisdom
Societal norms
Societal expectations
These are passed down from generation to generation.
As the dominant neurotype, social conditioning is created by neurotypicals for other neurotypicals.
Which is why we don’t live in harmony with societal expectations.
It’s why we’re weird and have never fitted in.
The two most commonly used mechanisms to reinforce social conditioning are: 👇
Reward and punishment
Relentless repetition of messaging
Rewarding certain behaviours that are acceptable to society reinforces them, while punishing others suppresses them.
Obedience at school is rewarded
Naughtiness is punished
Handing work in on time is rewarded
Missing the deadline is punished
Putting your hand up in class is rewarded
Shouting out the answers is punished
This is why you were branded as lazy. It also explains why your report cards stated you had so much potential if you only applied yourself — and so on.
The second mechanism of social conditioning involves repeating the same message repeatedly.
This is extremely powerful.
So much so it’s used in war propaganda and politics.
When we are relentlessly told by authority figures that we are not living up to neurotypcial standards our mind starts to believe we’re not good enough.
This is what happens with neurotypical social conditioning 👆
If societal expectations of children were based on creativity, divergent thinking and problem-solving you would have been lauded as a genius, but alas…
➡️ If we can pull back the curtain and reframe our social conditioning, we can liberate ourselves from the chains of societal expectations. ⬅️
We are not broken —or stupid.
We are neurodivergent multipotentialite fish who can’t climb neurotypical trees.
Most of our problems and challenges are not based on reality.
They are based on what we have been socially conditioned to believe is the reality.
These are neurotypical strengths.
They are our core weaknesses.
We have been socially conditioned into believing these qualities are the only way to succeed.
How To Be A Successful Neurotypical👇
Pick one thing and focus on it
Niche down
Specialisation
Consistency
Future planning
Productivity
Delivering work on time
We are constantly bombarded with neurotypical messaging about consistency, hustle culture, niching down, and specialisation.
We’re ambitious.
We want to succeed.
So we spend a shit load of time and energy trying to be more neurotypical.
We leverage our anxiety to try and get shit done
We beat ourselves up for our inability to pick one thing
We think we’re failures as we’re fish who can’t climb neurotypical trees
But we’ve got it all wrong.
Neurotypical’s strengths are our weaknesses.
Our strengths are neurotypical weaknesses.
Trying to be more neurotypical is a poor strategy
That leads to burnout.
We do the opposite. We need to apply inversion thinking and be contrarian.
The true path for multipotentialites is the unconventional one.
We need to tap into our rebellious archetype.
We hate being told what to do.
Do the opposite of your neurotypical social conditioning.
If you flip all of your neurotypical social conditioning, you can lean into our multipotentialite strengths 💪
✅ Niche Up > Niche Down ❌
✅ Divergent thinking > convergent thinking ❌
✅ Generalisation > Specialisation ❌
✅ Multitasking > Focus ❌
✅ Contrarian thinking > status quo ❌
✅ Pick multiple things and conceptually blend them to create something remarkably unique > Pick one thing and become an expert ❌
✅ Be consistently good > Show up consistently ( Quality over quantity) ❌
✅ Follow our curiosity > Five year plans ❌
✅ Leverage AI > Productivity ❌
✅ Delivering when it’s ready > Delivering on time ❌
✅ Having a purpose > security ❌
✅ Creativity > Following the crowd ❌
And these are qualities we will continue to focus on and develop in this newsletter!
In my thirty years of working with multipotentialites in high-pressure creative environments, I have repeatedly seen them move the needle.
The 🗝️ is to focus on tasks that give us energy!
This means we get more done. 👆
And remove the tasks that drain our energy.
This means we burn out less.👆
Deconstructing Your Social Conditioning 🩺
✅ Self-awareness: Recognise that you’re not a failure; the most successful artists, creators, scientists and entrepreneurs are multipotentialites. Being different is a strength, especially in creativity and entrepreneurship. Be yourself and stand the fuck out in crowded markets.
✅ Question assumptions: Question everything! Is this true, or is this our social conditioning?! Much of our social conditioning belief system is throttling our creative potential!
✅ Reality check: Understand there is no silver bullet. Life is tough. Building businesses is fucking hard. But trying to do it the neurotypical way makes it 10X harder — and much more painful!
How is your social conditioning impacting your creative potential?
Let us know in the comments.
Hope this helps.
Peace out ✌️
Love this.
How does one Niche Up? What does that mean?