Glasser giving a talk in Ventura, California, in 2006.

William Glasser was well-known for being able to speak to large audiences for hours without a script or even notes. And it wasn’t just that he could speak to an audience; he could teach and entertain in a way that people seemed to become unaware of the time. It was common for the stage or platform from which he was going to speak to have a few simple items – a chair or stool, a small table with a glass or pitcher of water, and a microphone. That was it. No lectern, no screen, and no media to help him get his points across. And yet, people listened, by the thousands, and by the hour.

I asked him during one of our interviews if he had an outline in his head of what he wanted to cover and he said that he did. Basically, he wanted to cover what he saw as the four essentials –

1. Basic needs

2. The quality world

3. Creativity

4. Total behavior

Other than this simple outline there was no script or set presentation. To some extent, each time he presented he wondered himself what he was going to come up with. If the talk was shorter, then he had to make his points quickly; if it was longer, then he could explain more deeply and share more anecdotes. Either way the success of his talks was dependent on his own creativity. He also described how much the audience’s interest and energy promoted or hindered his creativity. He tried to put into words how his creativity could almost be on fire when an audience was supportive.

This short outline gave him what he needed to share informative and impressive presentations. Chances are, though, an outline this short wouldn’t be enough for the rest of us. For the rest of us it would help if these essential areas were filled out a bit. So, let’s do that. Let’s fill them out and add some detail. I will start the process, however I would like a lot of you to send me additional bullet points that I can add to each of them.

In other words, for each of the Four Essentials think of a word or phrase that defines or describes that Essential in a way that helps to make it more clear. For instance –

Basic Needs
+ A unique set of urges / needs that constantly exert pressure on us to be met
+ Genetically passed on to us
+ Do not change over time
+ Are comprised of five psychological needs – purpose and meaning, love and belonging, power and success, freedom and autonomy, joy and fun – and one physiological need – survival and safety. (Glasser believed there are four psychological needs – love and belonging, power, freedom, and fun.)

Quality World
+ A place in our head where we store pictures of anyone or anything that helps us to satisfy one or more of the basic needs.
+ QW pictures can be of people, places, objects, activities, and beliefs
+ The QW is an amoral picture book. In other words, we may collect pictures that help us to temporarily feel good, but that may not be good for us.

Creativity
+ Our brain is always creating potential behaviors in response to the changing circumstances around us.
+ Some behaviors become “old stand-by” behaviors for us and we store these for use as needed.
+ It is much preferable to depend on the Caring Habits as our go-to, “old stand-by’ behavior. The Caring Habits include supporting, encouraging, listening, accepting, trusting, respecting, negotiating differences.
+ It is common, though, to use one or more of the Deadly Habits when our circumstances change in a way that we don’t like. Deadly Habits include criticizing, blaming, complaining, nagging, threatening, punishing, and rewarding to manipulate.
+ We create behaviors that we think will satisfy our needs at the moment. A behavior we choose might not bring a lot of satisfaction, but it doesn’t take much for us to make this choice. For instance, we might choose one of the Deadly Habits because it gives us a very small feeling of control.

Total Behavior
+ All behavior is purposeful.
+ Every behavior is made up of four parts that are best described by the words thinking, acting, feeling, and physiology.
+ We have direct control over two of the parts – thinking and acting.
+ We only have indirect control over the other two parts – feeling and physiology.

Help me improve these bulleted lists by adding things I have left out or by correcting any mistakes I may have made. Maybe some of them could be worded better. Let me know.

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One of the things we’ll be talking about during the Choice Theory Study Group tomorrow afternoon, March 15, is the concept of total behavior. We start in the PUC Education Building at 2:00 pm. I hope you can be there.

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Being honest may not get you a lot of friends,
but it will get you the right ones.
John Lennon