Excerpt from Chapter 5 - Beliefs: Equivalences

"Being Passionate About Something" - Eliciting the Criterion

Throughout the rest of the book we will be drawing our primary examples of Array elicitation from our of modeling Kendall's ability to be passionate about something. After setting the stage by getting a description of her ability, identifying examples, and selecting one of them as our "home" example (Chapter 3), we were ready for the formal elicitation of Kendall's Array. We began by identifying the Criterion operating in her home example of being passionate about her work:

Elicit the Criterion

David: Going back to that time yesterday when you were doing the teleclass, as you are <i>there</i>, working with these people on the phone, what's important to you?

Kendall: What's important to me is that they're getting what they want. That what I'm delivering is useful to them, that it's helpful to them.

Kendall's first response is "they're getting what they want." But this is immediately followed by a further clarification, that it is "useful" and "helpful." The fact that these two expressions specify some of the kinds of things that her clients could "want" suggests that they are criteria. In addition, her voice tonality and facial expressions mark out "useful" and "helpful" as being really true for her.

By having her then compare her experience of "useful" and "helpful," she then resolves the distinction between the two, explaining that "Helpful has more of an element of caring." We ultimately find out that what is really important to her in the context of her work is to be "helpful." We do not yet know if that is her Criterion when being passionate in general, however. To do that, we need to compare it with her other examples of being passionate:

David: So in relation to your husband and your relationship, being in love with him, when you are in that context, in that situation where you are getting to manifest and experience that passion, What’s important to you then?

Kendall: I actually want him to know how wonderful I think he is, and I want him to know how much I love him.

David: Why?

Kendall: Because it feels really good. It feels really good for me. I just love that, I love telling somebody that I love them, and this ties into it in lots of different ways, like leaving little notes or phone calls, being appreciative for the things he does, which is a lot.

Kendall does not mention being “helpful” here. Instead, what jumps out here is “being appreciative.” Since her work and her relationship are both contexts in which she is passionate, the Criterion must be similar or the same in both, so we compare the two examples. Recalling that it was very important to Kendall that her clients appreciate how helpful something was for them, we ask about the importance of “being appreciative” in the context of her work. She confirms that it is very important. Checking the third example:

David: In the context of being with your horses – and that may not be actually with them, perhaps, maybe it’s even thinking about them, I don’t know – but when you are in the context of being with your horses, what’s important to you then?

Kendall: ...What’s important to me about riding...I want to say everything! What’s important to me with riding…I love the feel of it…From the heart, what’s important is loving every moment of it. And when I’m working with my horse, whether it’s grooming him or tacking up, riding or training or cooling out or doing whatever. It’s really appreciating and loving every moment of it. …So what’s important to me is appreciating him and communicating with him the very best that I possibly can at any given moment.

She answers by describing some of what she appreciates; that is, in her response she is demonstrating that what she does is to be appreciative. Now her pattern is clear to her, as well, and she simply states, “So what’s important to me is appreciating...” The Criterion, then, is “Being Appreciative.”