How To Choose Your People Chapter 17

Chapter 17 — Some Tips on Spotting Tones

SOME TIPS ON SPOTTING TONES

You will get the most benefit from the tone scale by using it on every person you meet: business associates, neighbors, store clerks, club members, relatives and friends. You begin by determining whether the person is high or low. After that, spotting exact tone is easier (and often unnecessary). The data in this chapter should help.

HOW DO YOU FEEL AFTER YOU ARE WITH HIM?

For at least a short time after exposure to a downscale person, the world looks a bit grimmer and the future less exciting. The contagious good humor of an up-tone person leaves you happier and more optimistic.

Also, there's your instinctive sense the moment you meet a person for the first time. As the young people say, you'll get "good vibes" or "bad vibes." If you have established a fair batting average with your intuition, trust it. If your average isn't so good, you are probably most often taken in by beautiful Apathy, kind Sympathy or sweet Covert Hostility.

HOW WELL IS HE SURVIVING?

Survival relates to both physical and mental well being. If a person is losing, if he can't support himself, if he's inadequately clothed, fed or housed, he's in the lower ranges of the emotions. Nearer the top, the person owns the basic necessities of living (or more). He's winning and planning a better future.

Possession of money alone is not always an accurate index of a person's survival. We sometimes see a downscale person with a great deal of money who is unable to accomplish as much as a high-tone individual with much less.

HOW WELL IS HE UNDERSTOOD?

The chap in the lower emotions frequently complains that people don't understand him. If you listen to him, you'll know why. He may say too little. He may chatter on in a daffy monolog constantly interrupting himself and flitting off on new tangents as he tries to say everything at once. If he's in a hyper-intellectual bag, he'll use such big words and obscure references that a hardened egghead can't understand him.

A topscale person is able to make himself understood. He's courageous enough to communicate clearly and simply. So, for a quick tone assessment, don't concern yourself with how much he says or how many ten-dollar words he uses; the only question is: does his message ever arrive?

WHAT DOES HE TALK ABOUT?

The higher level person enjoys hearing and passing on good news, ideas, inspiring concepts and solutions. Lower types prefer talking about (and listening to) bad news, sensationalism, death, destruction, scandal and problems. Many people are concerned about pollution problems today; but while the downscale people are merely spreading advance death notices, the high-tone ones are offering solutions.

TALK BALANCE

Upscale people enjoy talking; but they are equally able and willing to listen. So, when we see someone whose mouth runs like a perpetual motion machine or someone who's bottled up like a time capsule, we can be sure he is in the bottom ranks.

PROBLEMS

Under 2.0 a person takes pride in convincing others that his problems can't be solved. He says he has to get downtown but his car is in the garage for repairs. You suggest a taxi and he replies, "Oh, you can't get a taxi this time of day." A neighbor perhaps? "I don't know anyone well enough to ask." Hitchhike? "But people won't pick up hitchhikers anymore." By this time, you'll probably quit trying to solve his dilemma. The real problem isn't transportation anyway; it's tone.

A person near the top enjoys getting problems solved so he can get on with his major goals.

THE COMMUNICATION LAG

Ron Hubbard discovered another excellent indication of tone level: the communication lag (usually referred to as comm lag). This is the length of time that elapses after a person is asked a question and before he answers. If you ask an upscale person an answerable question, such as "How many doors are in this room?" he will look and give you an instant answer. Someone on the downside, however, will hesitate for a short or a long time (depending on how low-tone he is). He may wonder what you're driving at, or try to figure out if this is a trick question. He may launch into a long dissertation about the definition of a door and maybe those windows could be considered doors and how does he know you don't have a hidden door under the rug; but he doesn't answer the question. A long communication lag indicates a chaotic mind, one that cannot handle the simple cycle of a question and an answer.

A person in Apathy or Grief may never answer a question (unless you repeat it several times). Some college boys brought a friend to see me one day. Several weeks earlier this boy had taken one LSD trip too many; he never came back. He was in deep, foggy Apathy. When I suggested a cup of coffee, he followed me to the kitchen. I asked if he took cream or sugar; he stared off vacantly for several minutes until I repeated the question. Finally, looking at me as if I were a total stranger, he mumbled, "I don't know..."

A person's environment becomes less and less real as he descends the tone scale. What he hears, sees, smells, tastes or feels is less real in the low bands. To this young man, a cup of coffee was unreal, and so was the cream and sugar. The communication lag is an excellent tool for a personnel man or anyone who is interviewing men and women for hire. If you ask someone for his name, address or phone number, he may reply quickly because he is programmed by habit to give automatic answers to these questions. Ask him something like: "How many feet do most people have?" and you will learn his communication lag. Some low-tone individuals will give you a barrel of philosophical hogwash without answering the question. The 1.1 will comm lag while he searches for a hidden meaning behind your question (he'll be trying to figure out what you want to hear). A person may jabber, or be silent; he may repeat or try to clarify your question. Near answers, guesses and indecision don't count. The length of time between asking the question the first time and receiving a correct answer is the comm lag. An individual's ability to plunge into elaborate thinking processes is no clue to his tone. He must be here – now – to observe accurately. So the comm lag tells you how far a person is out of present time. A person or business will take a certain length of time to execute an order. This is also a comm lag. When a secretary takes three hours to find a letter in her files, she's pretty far gone. If you order office equipment that doesn't arrive for six months, you are dealing with a low-tone organization. You can predict the survival potential of a business by its comm lag.

ACCIDENTS

When someone frequently cuts, bruises and smashes his body, gets things in his eyes, bashes the fenders of his car, or acquires an excessive number of traffic tickets, he's low-tone, regardless of how well he explains his tribulations. The lower the tone, the more accident prone he is. The person on the upper side leads a "charmed life," experiencing few accidents and injuries. This isn't just luck. He's more here; he reacts faster and thereby avoids accidents.

DOING A JOB

Someone high on the tone scale structure accomplishes a great deal in a short time, while the low person takes a long time to do a small job. However, there are the downscale short-cutters who rush through something and really make a hash of it. Willingness, to do a job is another indication of tone. The upscale individual is willing to take on any job, big or small, if it fits in with his general goals. A downscale person finds all sorts of ways to avoid getting involved. Many jobs are beneath his dignity (unless he's way down in the mop-the-floor-with-me tones). It's below 2.0 that we find the chap who wastes his life away because he's too good for all the jobs around.

"I KNEW IT ALL THE TIME" SYNDROME

In the bottom zones we find people who refuse to be surprised. This is most common between 1.1 and 2.0. You tell him something amazing and he says, "I already knew that," "I expected as much," or "I can't say I'm surprised." He "agrees late." Unwilling to be taken by surprise, or thrown off balance, he pretends he knew it all the time. He's second cousin to the man who says "I told you so," and twin brother to the one who makes a mistake and pretends he meant to do it that way all along.

The highscale person is willing to be surprised and he's willing to make and admit mistakes.

MOBILITY

The most important thing to know about emotions is that individuals change all over the scale if they are sane. The sane man gets mad when the supplier fails to deliver on time; but he gets over it. He gets scared if a drunken driver careens out in front of him; but he gets unscared when the danger is past. He experiences the appropriate emotion for the occasion; but the higher he is on the scale, the more quickly he recovers. Most of the time, of course, he's cheerful and confident. The low-tone person gets shaken up more easily and takes longer to recover. He may stay upset for days or weeks. He may never recover, in which case he settles into a chronic lower tone. A number of years ago I played duplicate bridge in Detroit tournaments. My partner and I agreed that when either of us made an error, we would acknowledge it and forget it. By taking our thoughts off of our goofs we could put our full attention on the present play at all times. This agreement turned out to be one of our best assets. As we moved from table to table, we often encountered couples who were still engaged in heated arguments about the previous hand. When this happened, we nearly always won our round with them because the angry person will continue the attack against his own partner (this gave us three against one). He can be counted on to be reckless, to give too little information and to do everything possible to make his partner wrong. With such a couple the bidding might go something like this:

Opponent: "Two hearts." (That'll force her to bid.)

His Partner: "Three hearts." (Let's see him make that, the fool.) Opponent: "Four hearts." (She'd better have them!)

While this could be legitimate bidding, with two angry people, the chances are it's not. In such a case we generally doubled the contract and walked off with top board.

TONE RANGE

As mentioned several times, people move on the scale. This can be confusing when you are trying to spot someone who moves only in a low range, for it means that when he is at his best, he's still below 2.0. If he's usually in Grief, he'll feel excited and alive when he gets up to Fear.

Dennis, an unsuccessful free lance writer and moderately successful gigolo, spent most of his time in subdued Fear, although he was flexible enough to utilize a 1.1 charm or a griefy Propitiation when threatened with the necessity of having to support himself. Thus he lived by worming his way into the benevolent confidence of sympathetic and propitiative women. With a full stomach and a few extra dollars in his pocket, however, he often soared up to his emotional ceiling – No Sympathy – where he snarled at the hands that fed him, ran around looking menacing and took tremendous pride in believing that people found him formidable.

Perry was in Anger most of the time. As the volume turned up and down, he ranged from sullen resentment (at the bottom of 1.2) to bristling combativeness, but never made it quite up to rage. His uninformed friends, however, liked him best when he dropped down to 1.1 where he became politely "nice."

Merilee, the lovely and constantly promiscuous actress, was primarily a Sympathy person who frequently slipped to Apathy and drank herself senseless. In her best (and sober) times, she became a 1.1 doll who glowingly proclaimed that everything was marvelous.

The most insane people of all are those who remain solidly in one tone all the time. Next on the sanity scale are those who move; but their peak is still below 2.0. Even more sane are those who can hit the high tones when all is going well and the environment is good. The sanest people rest at the top, but travel down and back up the scale freely.

SUCCESS

The downscale person prefers explaining why he failed, telling you (with malicious pleasure) that others are failing or pretending he's a huge success when his actual achievements are minimal.

The upscale person enjoys true success and seeing others succeed.

GENERALITIES

An individual in the lower tones uses generalities to justify his position on something: "Nobody goes there anymore," "Everybody thinks. . ." "People always.. ."

The upscale person is more specific-. If he uses generalities for convenience, they will be backed up with statistics.

ETHICS

If you're having a social lunch with a friend and he suggests you put the lunch on your expense account because "nobody will know the difference anyway," he's below 2.5 on the scale.

At Boredom a person will do what he can get away with. Lower down, ethics go all the way from mild cheating to flagrant criminality. A person engaged in any illegal or unethical activities is always below 2.0.

The high-tone person plays it straight – even when nobody's looking.

POSSESSIONS

Notice how the person grooms himself. Is he clean and neat or is he dirty and unkempt? He'll take care of his environment the same way he takes care of his body.

In the upper tones a person puts order into an environment. His property will be neat, clean and in good repair. The low-scale individual creates chaos; his possessions will be dirty, broken, unworkable (and sometimes unfindable).

If you create an attractive home or office, the down-tone individual who comes into it will destroy the beauty one way or another. He dirties it, breaks the curtain rod and leaves it drooping, clutters the space with junk, smashes a window and neglects to fix it. He turns your beauty into shambles.

His "acceptance level" is low. This is reflected in the cars he drives, the hotels he uses, the clothes he wears. Living in a cluttered, shabby environment indicates that he cannot accept a clean, attractive area. When a man leaves a beautiful, happy girl to run off with a low-tone prostitute, his acceptance level is below that of the beautiful girl. If he receives handsome clothes but wears rags, if he remains on a poorly paying job, his acceptance level is low.

Some downscale people are trained to be clean and to collect decent belongings; but they care for their property very seriously, constantly worrying and fussing about it. The upscale person takes good care of possessions; but he's splendidly lighthearted about them.

SERIOUS-HAPPY

Too often a fun-loving child is chastised for not "taking things seriously." That's a sure clue to a downscale person. He's intense and he wants others to be serious about things. The upscale individual keeps his sense of humor and buoyancy.

While happiness and cheerfulness are trademarks of the high-tone person, we must differentiate the real thing from the sham. Happiness isn't: 1) the sad-faced euphoric living-happily-for-ever-after kind of thing in which the Apathy person speaks of "inner peace" in a dull monotone interspersed with deep sighs 2) the phony 1.1 enthusiasm with its perpetual smile and compulsive laughter 3) Propitiation asserting (with sober intensity) how fulfilling it is to "do" for those less fortunate or 4) a manic state of he-hawing donkey glee (usually such a person is actually Apathy).

It is a quiet inner glow of cheerfulness which sometimes bubbles over into a song or a belly laugh. It's not asserted; it's just there. And the sunshine’s a little brighter.

If there's any doubt, look at the other aspects of the person's life.

THE "COME ALIVE" ASSESSMENT

One of the most valuable tools in spotting tone is this: What turns the person on? I call it the "come alive" assessment. Notice what grabs a person's interest and animates him and you'll know his tone.

Between 1.1 and 2.0 a person gets kicks out of scaring people, making them nervous, bewildered, embarrassed, making them wrong and seeing them disturbed. He will relish recounting such incidents. Upscale people never take pleasure in someone else's discomfort.

I read recently about a carnival side show in which (with the aid of glass and special lighting) the audience was tricked into believing that a wild animal was coming right out into the audience. The perpetrator of this hoax says he's happy when the crowd is frightened into a frenzied stampede for the door. "When I do a show and nobody runs, it makes me feel bad," he said.

Pleasure is something that neither man nor civilization can do without. It's man's whole reason for existing. The concept of pleasure takes on many meanings as we move up and down the scale, however. In the rich playboy, pleasure becomes an idle satisfaction of the senses without plan or progress toward any Goal. Hightone pleasure may be easy and relaxed or dynamic and constructive; but the upscale person never enjoys purely destructive or perverted sensual gratification. He gets enjoyment from survival actions. He will desire skills, a good job, a large income, many holdings and good possessions. These are all survival goals.

Downscale, pleasure moments are turned toward destruction. The Antagonism person takes pleasure in whooping up a good argument or beating down the enemy. The 1.5 will tell you, with satisfaction, how he really "put a stop to that." He'll advocate killing and blowing things up. The idea of destruction turns him on. A 1.1 comes alive if he runs across a tremendously inviting situation which permits him to be devious, covertly hostile, or perverted in some way. He'll delight in deceiving someone into believing an outrageous lie. He'll chuckle lasciviously as he describes how he cheated on his wife. If he dwells on death, illness, tragedy, and poverty he's probably in the lower band. And if he turns on with a chance to do for the unfortunate, he's in Sympathy or Propitiation.

A Grief/Apathy person will actually daydream contemplating the most gruesome suicides and deaths of his loved ones and how he and everyone else would feel if this happened. That's his kinky kind of pleasure.

PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE

Where is his attention in time? A person between 0 and 1.0 is caught in the past. You say, "Look at the purple sunset," and he must describe all the other sunsets he's ever seen (or those he missed).

Between 1.1 and 2.0 he's barely in present time. He talks a great deal about "getting things started." He lives impulsively without regard for the future consequences.

Between 2.0 and 3.0 the person is pretty much in present time, although he doesn't look back much and prefers not to plan too far ahead.

The individual at the top can remember the past with enjoyment; but his attention is on the present and long-range planning of the future.

ARE YOU KILLING OR CURING?

If you're a teacher, minister, office manager, marriage counselor, doctor or a person with a next door neighbor, sooner or later you are likely to be faced with the job of coping with an upset person. When this happens, you should keep in mind the progressive order of the tones. This is the only way to determine whether you boosted him up the scale a bit or pushed him out the bottom.

When someone comes to you in tears and leaves feeling calm, you should be able to determine whether his calmness is higher tone or whether he's slipping into Apathy. If a person stops crying, heaves a monstrous sigh, and says, "Well, I guess that's the way life is. I'll just have to accept it," you'd better panic. He's gone downtone and you may next hear of him in the obituary column. On the other hand, if a Grief person stops crying and becomes interested in you or someone else and wants to do something, he's risen to Propitiation and that's an improvement.

A friend once called me sobbing, "I just can't take any more. What's the use of it all?"

Without waiting to hear her whole story, I said: "Put the coffee pot on. I'm coming over."

The trouble, it seemed was with her marriage which had graduated into a limply "polite" stage. Now, due to some small provocation, she was convinced that her husband no longer loved her and everything was hopeless. Many cups of coffee later I left her in Anger – not the best tone, but much more alive.

Before her husband arrived home she lined up her old job and a place for herself and three children to live. Typical of Anger, she was ready to destroy the marriage; but she was also eager to confront her husband without sentimentality or forced niceness, and she did so. A royal battle ensued. Her husband, apparently, harbored much repressed discontent with their marriage too. Her Anger brought him out of his shell. They screamed until all their gripes were aired, a few confessions made and they became bored with the whole thing. After realizing that they were both more or less right, they emerged at a new level of interest in each other and this led to a second honeymoon-type situation which, according to her report, was better than the first one. Their marriage now operates on a higher tone. They engage in healthy battle from time to time; but they are no longer covert with each other. When they are loving and kind, it's genuine.

As a person changes emotions, he may skip some tones or they won't be apparent. It's an elevator ride where he won't necessarily stop at every floor; but you should be able to identify enough emotions to know whether he's going up or down.

SUMMARY

Learn to differentiate between high and low tones first. After that an exact evaluation is easier.

A person may not manifest every characteristic of his tone. You may know someone who seems to be in Fear, but who whips up a tirade at the paper boy. You may know a 1.1 who never puns, plays practical jokes or laughs nervously. Look for the tone in which most of his actions fall and don't worry about the manifestations that don't fit.

Most people move up and down the scale somewhat, so you may need to observe someone several times to determine his chronic tone (or tone range).

When you encounter someone you can't place on the scale (and you know he's not at the top) he's probably a 1.1.

Social prejudices can hamper our ability to use the tone scale accurately. A man may admire a beautiful girl so much that he is incapable of evaluating her tone. A person over forty, may form an instant dislike for a long-haired, bare-footed, letit-all-hang-out youth. If you evaluate by tone instead of prejudice you'll find some lovable, topscale men under those shaggy beards. When we use outmoded standards to classify people we may choose some bad ones – and we may also miss the opportunity of sharing a bit of merriment with a blithe spirit.

The other major flaw in tone scale evaluation lies in our own personal weaknesses. We may give someone the "benefit of the doubt" when we actually know better. This is a misguided kindness, for we can aid the other person most (not to mention the wear and tear we save on our own nervous systems) by simply evaluating him correctly in the beginning.

So, the first mistake you can make with the tone scale is not using it. The second mistake you can make is not believing it.

Any further mistakes depend upon your own originality and imagination.