Our Greatest Fear

Each of us has our own unique personality, which includes our own way of behaving. When you’re looking to RESET Your Buttons®, it’s crucial that you understand yourself and your behavioral tendencies. For example, most of us are unable to predict how we will behave when frightened. When your behavior and reactions become unpredictable, so may the behavior and reactions of those around you. That can create a volatile mixture. A fear-driven situation is one in which a person is driven so far out of his or her comfort zone that their assumptions about that situation are challenged.

In RESET Your Buttons®, we call this pushing the Expectations button. When you wake up in the morning, you expect the sky to be up, the ground to be down, red to be red and blue to be blue. Any other scenario could make you, well, afraid. While no two people’s reactions are exactly the same, most people have behavior tendencies that will fall into one of four categories.

Dr. William Moulton Marston created the DISC Theory Behavioral model, one of the major influences for the RESET model. Marston was the creator of the systolic blood-pressure test, which led to the creation of the polygraph (lie detector). This discovery led him to the creation of the Wonder Woman Character … but I digress. The point is that DISC is an acronym that Marston described as Dominance, Inducement, Submission, and Compliance. In the book RESET Your Buttons® I refer to your Accomplishment, Recognition, Stability, and Correctness buttons based on, among others – Marston’s research.

When your fear button has been triggered, here are a few things you can expect depending upon your style and that style’s major fear.   Dominance Style or Accomplishment Button Major Fear: Being taken advantage of and/or losing control. Button Pushed: People with this button may tend to become demanding (thump the table, point a finger, etc.) eventually if the button is not RESET they will become like a tyrant.

Inducement Style or Recognition Button Major Fear: Social Rejection and/or being ignored (loss of approval). Button Pushed: People with this button may tend to over talk (turn up the volume & speed), if the button is not RESET they will throw an emotional tantrum.

Submission Style or Stability Button Major Fear: Sudden change and/or loss of security. Button Pushed: People with this button may appear to comply or go along. Ultimately, unless they RESET, will withdraw emotionally and later erupt with even greater emotion.

Compliance Style or Correctness Button Major Fear: Criticism of what they do, making mistakes and/or lack of standards Button Pushed: A tendency to go silent-with coldness, ultimately withdrawing with dignity, and without using their RESET Button, will attack with facts.