Can't evolve from stage Red

[Capital]

For years, I thought I was at the Orange stage of Spiral Dynamics, but after some deep self-reflection on my thoughts and behaviors in the real world, I’ve realized that most of my psyche—about 70%—aligns with the Red stage. Here’s what I’ve observed about myself:

    1.    Manipulative Behavior: I’m highly skilled at manipulating people to get what I want, with no regard for their feelings or how my actions affect them.

    2.    Dishonesty in Relationships:

    •    I talk to multiple women (more than five at once) and make each believe I love them, without them knowing I’m seeing others.

    •    I cheat in relationships and pretend to care about my girlfriend when I don’t.

    3.    Workplace Deception:

    •    In my sales job, I often lie to my manager to get what I want.

    •    I manipulate clients into buying from me, acting like I care about their needs when my only concern is making money.

    4.    Short-Term Thinking:

    •    My life revolves around finding shortcuts and playing mind games to achieve immediate gratification.

    •    I live day by day, hour by hour, with no concern for long-term consequences.

    •    Planning or thinking long-term feels almost impossible for me.

 

Although I’ve been living this way, I sometimes feel like I’m playing the role of a villain in life. It doesn’t seem like a fulfilling way to exist.

 

How can I evolve and grow beyond this?

I want to transition to higher stages like Blue and Orange, but I’m unsure how to break out of these patterns. What steps can I take to truly evolve and live a better, more purposeful life?

 

[Leo Gura]

Very good. Few people at Red would even admit such things about themselves or have a desire to grow out of it. So you've taken a big first step.

To outgrow Red I suggest you focus on truthfulness. Notice how untruthfully you are living and contemplate through the long-term consequences of that. Then, make an decision to start living more truthfully. Try to go 1 week without a sinlge lie. Then a month. Notice how your behavior and lifestyle would need to change so that you no longer have a need to lie. Make a long-term plan to design your life such that you don't need to lie any more, not to others, not to yourself. Slowly start to phase out all behaviors and lifestyle choices that necessitate lying to sustain.

36 minutes ago, Capital said:

I talk to multiple women (more than five at once)

Leave some for us bro.

[Greatnestwithin]

love this, beautiful reflection. Great work! 

[Snader]

Stop manipulating us to tell you how to grow, you red devil!

Just kidding. Great self-reflection and honesty!

[Michael569]

Damn, that's a brutal self reflection. I think Jordy P could be a good influence for you at this stage, consider having a read through his 12 Rules book.

Hell, you might even consider attending a church mass every now and then or at least sit in church on your own to reflect, I find that extremely contemplative experience 

[Hugo Oliveira]

First, don't get trapped in the SD model as if your life needs to fit accordingly to its narrative.

Ask yourself what is your true relationship with morals. Are you just judging yourself for being a "bad person" or do you notice other negative symptoms/consequences in your life that come from a lack of integrity/ethics? (write that)

Question yourself deeply about the real reasons you have to change. it can not be just about a different bright color in spiral dynamics. (write that too)

Identify what you want for yourself and the world by breaking these patterns. Which new patterns do you want to develop and why?

Then, consciously, step by step, make the transition. Notice what you'll get, what you'll lose, and what you'll sacrifice.

The most important point here is to work with great clarity or intuition to know your reasons and how and why you are changing. 

[Capital]

17 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Very good. Few people at Red would even admit such things about themselves or have a desire to grow out of it. So you've taken a big first step.

To outgrow Red I suggest you focus on truthfulness. Notice how untruthfully you are living and contemplate through the long-term consequences of that. Then, make an decision to start living more truthfully. Try to go 1 week without a sinlge lie. Then a month. Notice how your behavior and lifestyle would need to change so that you no longer have a need to lie. Make a long-term plan to design your life such that you don't need to lie any more, not to others, not to yourself. Slowly start to phase out all behaviors and lifestyle choices that necessitate lying to sustain.

Leave some for us bro.

I’ve always considered myself the best liar I’ve ever met. I can act and lie without getting caught because I calculate everything so carefully. The truth is, lying and manipulating have brought me a lot of success in life. It got me more women, a promotion to team leader in my sales job, and even more financial opportunities. But despite all of that, I want to stop living this way. It leaves me feeling empty and untruthful.

When I decided to come here, be real, and show a bit of my true self, I felt a small sense of relief. and from now I will start being truthful to my self and others as much as I can.

Thank you for your advice—it really means a lot. Love you, Leo. 

Edited 8 hours ago by Capital

[Capital]

5 minutes ago, Snader said:

Stop manipulating us to tell you how to grow, you red devil!

Just kidding. Great self-reflection and honesty!

That got me laughing ... maybe true tho, who knows !! 

[Capital]

14 minutes ago, Michael569 said:

Damn, that's a brutal self reflection. I think Jordy P could be a good influence for you at this stage, consider having a read through his 12 Rules book.

Hell, you might even consider attending a church mass every now and then or at least sit in church on your own to reflect, I find that extremely contemplative experience 

I remember a time in my life when Jordan Peterson started going viral. His advice about discipline, cleaning your room, and not lying really resonated with me. I tried applying those rules for a while, and it felt good—it gave me a sense of structure and integrity.

But no matter how much I tried, I always seemed to fall back into my old behaviors and manipulation techniques whenever an opportunity presented itself. If I saw a chance for personal gain—whether it was money, validation, or even attention from women—I couldn’t resist. It’s like the temptation of immediate benefits always outweighed the long-term values I was trying to build.

[Capital]

18 minutes ago, Hugo Oliveira said:

First, don't get trapped in the SD model as if your life needs to fit accordingly to its narrative.

Ask yourself what is your true relationship with morals. Are you just judging yourself for being a "bad person" or do you notice other negative symptoms/consequences in your life that come from a lack of integrity/ethics? (write that)

Question yourself deeply about the real reasons you have to change. it can not be just about a different bright color in spiral dynamics. (write that too)

Identify what you want for yourself and the world by breaking these patterns. Which new patterns do you want to develop and why?

Then, consciously, step by step, make the transition. Notice what you'll get, what you'll lose, and what you'll sacrifice.

The most important point here is to work with great clarity or intuition to know your reasons and how and why you are changing. 

Great advice! I find the Spiral Dynamics model to be a highly accurate representation of consciousness development and psychology. It resonates with both my personal experiences and the people around me.

[Leo Gura]

21 minutes ago, Capital said:

I’ve always considered myself the best liar I’ve ever met. I can act and lie without getting caught because I calculate everything so carefully. The truth is, lying and manipulating have brought me a lot of success in life. It got me more women, a promotion to team leader in my sales job, and even more financial opportunities. But despite all of that, I want to stop living this way. It leaves me feeling empty and untruthful.

When I decided to come here, be real, and show a bit of my true self, I felt a small sense of relief. and from now I will start being truthful to my self and others as much as I can.

Thank you for your advice—it really means a lot. Love you, Leo. 

Good. You're on a good track. Keep working it. Make small improvements to your truthfulness. You can't fix it all in one go. Slowly unwind your own corruption.

Edited 8 hours ago by Leo Gura

[Capital]

3 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Good. You're on a good track. Keep working it. Make small improvements to your truthfulness. You can't fix it all in one go. Slowly unwind your own corruption.

I feel like I should start by being truthful with the women I talk to because that’s the hardest part for me. The thought of facing the consequences—like possibly losing all of them once they find out I’ve cheated—is overwhelming. And here’s your chance, Leo, to take some of them off my hands (just kidding).

But seriously, they’ll see me for what I am: a liar and a cheater. I think being honest about this would be a huge step toward living truthfully. The question is, do I have the courage to do it? What do you think?

[Leo Gura]

7 hours ago, Capital said:

I feel like I should start by being truthful with the women I talk to because that’s the hardest part for me. The thought of facing the consequences—like possibly losing all of them once they find out I’ve cheated—is overwhelming. And here’s your chance, Leo, to take some of them off my hands (just kidding).

But seriously, they’ll see me for what I am: a liar and a cheater. I think being honest about this would be a huge step toward living truthfully. The question is, do I have the courage to do it? What do you think?

That's a really huge leap that is likely to cause a big ego backlash in you.

I suggest you start with smaller ways of being truthful. For example, stop lying to your girlfriends about small stuff.

Edited 15 minutes ago by Leo Gura

[Capital]

1 minute ago, Leo Gura said:

That's a really huge leap that is likely cause a big ego backlash in you.

I suggest you start with smaller ways of being truthful. For example, stop lying to your girlfriends about small stuff.

Got it. So the plan is to start small—stop lying about the little things first—and gradually work my way up to bigger truths to avoid any ego backlash along the way. That makes sense. I’ll start working on it and share updates about my progress weekly in this thread. Let’s see how it goes! I really appreciate your advice and the great work you’re doing, Leo.

[Leo Gura]

@Capital Also, you wanna be careful not to truthbomb your girlfriends. You must balance truthfulness with them vs concern for their feelings. So breaking all their hearts is not necessarily the right way. There are some things you may withhold if it can spare them heartache.

Truthfulness does not mean you blow people up with truthbombs. Most people are not equipped to handle deep truth.

But you can at least stop putting yourself into such deep lies in the future. So, like, with your next new girl, try not lying to her.

Edited 7 hours ago by Leo Gura

[Capital]

@Leo Gura 

I’m glad you pointed that out because, to be honest, I don’t have a lot of empathy for other people’s feelings right now. I was literally considering sending all of them a message and truthbombing them all at once. But after reading your latest reply, I reflected on it and realized I was partly doing it for personal gain to feel like I’m being truthful and evolving to a higher SD stage without really considering how it would affect my girlfriends’ feelings. I have to do some more deep self-reflection honstly. 

[Greatnestwithin]

@Capital you might benefit deeply from therapy. Having someone who can support you in understanding best your own emotions and make sense of your inner world. Trying to do this kind of work on our own is and can be a trap.

[Monomachus]

If you haven't already, you can watch Leo's What Is Integrity video, it's a good one. Let what Leo says at 1hr 20m be your inspiration.

[The Renaissance Man]

3 hours ago, Capital said:

Planning or thinking long-term feels almost impossible for me.

@Capital This post is clearly proof that you can indeed think long-term. Trying to transcend one's current stage is clearly far from instant gratification! So that's great, and the self-honesty you showed is also rare. I probably wouldn't be able to self-assess like that.

I ask this with zero judgment, just to understand your feelings & thoughts, since empathy is clearly the biggest hurdle (or so it seems). How would you answer to:

• What if you were on the other side of the manipulation and cheating? Doesn't that idea discourage you from manipulating? At least the people that are closest to you?
• What if everybody were to lie and manipulate? What world would that be?
• After all empathy just boils down to knowing how painful being on the other side is, and so trying to avoid that pain for others. Have you experienced painful situations, and after experiencing them, found yourself trying to not put others in the same kind of pain?

[Buck Edwards]

Cheating on your girlfriends is not a good idea. Try to place yourself in their shoes. Maybe you can start with not lying to them.