By Don Keenan
At the foundation of all of my mentoring and teaching, is the belief that it’s not enough just to instruct on how to use Reptile©, but rather, full power doesn’t come without an understanding of what the Reptile© is and why it works.
Harken back to your experience at the two day Welcome to the Revolution and you’ll recall that very little practical application of the Reptile© was discussed by either David or I. It was all about what the Reptile© is and why it works.
Thank goodness we have discarded the early charlatans who saw the Reptile© as just a bag of tricks or a one shot use during trial. They dropped along the wayside, I believe, because once they realized that the Reptile© encompassed everything about your case from selection of the case all the way through appeal, they just didn’t want to devote the time to learning something new. So those folk are still off looking for that one trick pony that’s going to win their case.
Those of you who have hung in there and paid the tremendous learning curve price, now understand that the Reptile© is a culture. It has no real beginning and no end and, as soon as you realize that, the Reptile© will begin to work for you.
WHY THE REPTILE© WORKS
Do you really understand the depth of the Reptile© and why it works? There have been many a folk that have had that epiphany, that tipping point, that bolt of lightning on their road to Damascus and have reported that their understanding of the Reptile© really did not take hold until they recognized the Reptile© is simply about life. The Reptile© is not artificial nor does it only work in the courtroom. It is at work during every aspect of our life. David and I made the decision to put on the first Reptile© seminar in May 2009. Not having much direction on what we would do during those two days, and also recognizing that the book was late from the publisher, we had 120 people that hadn’t even read the book.
So we decided to meet for dinner the night before the first day to talk about the agenda and make sure we weren’t duplicating one another. But a phenomenon occurred, which I could not explain. Instead of talking about the subject matter of the seminar, we started to talk about our personal journey of reflection on what effect the Reptile© had had in our lives.
David shared one story and then I shared one and then he did and then I did and it went back and forth all night. That is the powerful revelations we both now understood about ourselves – “Why we do what we do, why we have the opinions and biases that we do.” It was a pure Reptile© self-examination.
THE REPTILE© JOURNEY EVENTUALLY COMES TO YOUR DOORSTEP
I believe, that night, I unlocked a greater power of the Reptile© than I ever had and that’s after nearly five years of slugging around the country to nine different states, 22 two day focus groups, a multitude of conferences, and reaching out to neuro science experts.
So each of you, at some point, needs to take that personal journey. Look in the mirror and make the Reptile© work for you.
By now, you are probably looking for the net to throw over me to take my butt off to a padded room. So it’s time to give you some personal examples, most of which I talked about during my dinner with David.
First, I had a habit of every single time I came back to Atlanta after being on the road, no matter what the time of day, I would have to go to my two story office building, unlock the door, turn on the lights, and go up to my office. Sometimes I would just go through the mail, often times I didn’t even turn on the computer, and then shortly thereafter, lock up the building and go home. Now this was an obsession. Even if I flew back into Atlanta at 1:00 or 2:00 in the morning, to me it was unconscionable to go home. I had to go to the office. The office staff had an inside joke that I must be doing something nefarious because the boss was here at 2:00 in the morning. What was he doing? Well, frankly, I don’t know what I was doing, because I could have just as easily gone home, gone to bed, come in the next morning and done the same thing I would have done at 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning.
So my first Reptile© journey was to try to figure out why. Well, we all know by now that earlier imprints during times when you’re young have a profound subconscious affect that holds the key to why we do what we do. So I went back to my childhood.
Me and My Grandfather
I was raised by my grandfather, my father having died when I was a year and a half old. My wonderful grandfather was a first generation Irishman in a very small town. He worked very hard to have his own business, a one man jewelry store for watch repair and sale of jewelry. My grandfather worshiped that store. The key went in the door every morning at 8:30 and he left at 5:00 every evening. He never had a sick day. He’d polish all the furniture, and until I was 6 years old, cleaned the windows every day. The window cleaning responsibility shifted to me at age 6. Every Saturday morning he would get me out of bed and it would be my job to clean the store front windows and mop the floor. I had that job until I left for college.
My grandfather saw the store as the golden goose that provided a roof over our heads, the food on our table, and the clothes on our back. He nurtured and worshiped that little store. We never spoke of it, but I saw that love, I shared that love, and it had a huge imprint on me.
So by now you know where I’m going. You know perfectly well why I had to go to my office at 2:00 in the morning. It was a form of respect for my practice, and yes, I guess it was a respect for the work ethic that my grandfather instilled in me.
I remember I was at my mountain cabin alone during a weekend when I made this Reptilian© self-discovery that explained why I did what I did and it was so powerful that I cried.
The amazing part of this story is that the second I discovered why I did what I did, that realization released me, and from that day forward, there has not been one single time when I’ve gone to my office at night or in the early morning. Knowledge freed me and I knew my grandfather would understand.
TWO OTHER REPTILE REVELATIONS
Now let me give you just two other revelations on my personal journey with the Reptile© and then I’ll let you go to, hopefully, start your journey of self-discovery. Let me begin with something I should have said earlier and, that is, the archetypologists, those who study why people do what they do, why they have the opinions they do, why they have the biases that they do, will tell you that the major truth is to find out why somebody does what they do, don’t ask them. They don’t know. When I make that statement at the Welcome to the Revolution seminar, I’m never surprised at the multitude of people who smile at that statement. They smile because we all recognize that we are usually the last person to know. Everyone knows that two of my passions are smoking cigars and drinking scotch whiskey. I cannot imagine life without either. For years I just thought I did it because I liked it.
Consider that one of the stories told to me about my childhood was the fact that when I was in a highchair sitting beside my grandfather, for fun, he would dip his finger in his scotch and put it on my lips only to have me smile and suck it in. I don’t know whether it was those instances, but I sure enough identify with my grandfather a glass of scotch in his hand, neat of course. That was a permanent fixture as was, and you probably guessed it, the cigar. Frankly, I can’t remember a time when my grandfather didn’t have a cigar in his hand.
Now is that the sole reason why I drink and smoke? Probably not. But it certainly is, as we lawyers would say, “a contributing factor.”
I love to listen to a baseball game on the radio. Even if it’s on television, often I’ll be out on the deck smoking my stogie, drinking my scotch, not watching the TV, but listening to the ballgame. Those are some of the most comforting times I can have. So you figured it out that my grandfather and I would sit on the front porch and listen to the baseball game on the radio forever. It was a time when I felt really close to him even though we didn’t talk much during the ballgame.
My final story is one about my father who I never met. But the one picture that I had in my bedroom growing up was of him in his dress Marine Corps blues.
My Father
He was a gunnery sergeant and I heard many stories. Tough as nails and extremely hard on his men because he served in wartime, and he didn’t want to lose any of them. So here I am at 19, in college, at the height of the Vietnam War, when my college burned the ROTC center. It was not fashionable to be anything military. Yet, I enlisted in the Marine Corps platoon leaders class (PLC) which is the officer-training arm of the Marine Corps. You see, I told myself I didn’t want to be an enlisted man. I had to be an officer. And you know I was never in favor of the Vietnam War, but figured that we were in it, and so I felt I had to do my duty even though my draft number was well into the safe range. To establish that I was not for the war, each platoon was given the right to have their own emblem on their platoon flag. The other misfits that I served with and I chose the peace symbol to be on our Marine Corps platoon flag. One of the stupidest things I ever participated in because we paid the price every day.
So if the war was unpopular, and I didn’t support it, and I was draft free, why did I enlist?
Well, you should know the answer by now. But it took me almost 30 years to figure out the obvious.
So, my friends, I have revealed some very personal information with the hope that it would empower you to take the journey of your own self-awareness. The Reptile© will win for you in court. It will make you the lawyer you always wanted to be. But for me, it’s much more powerful. The Reptile© will reveal to you some innermost secrets that you’ve held your whole life, which will explain who you are and why you do what you do. You may think you know now, but you don’t until you take the journey.
Once you’ve harnessed the power of the Reptile© in the courtroom, harness that power with your life.
BOTTOM LINE: If you truly make the Reptile© journey, eventually it comes to your doorstep and if you take the time, the “why’s” of your life and your purpose will be revealed. This journey will bring you the complete power of the Reptile©.