Reply #4: The story is an anecdote by a self-appointed expert in a book sold for profit

[HereSince1628]

It may or may not be true. But I think it is not completely true. It's certainly a convenience for the author to pull an unverifiable story out of his ass to bolster an argument in a self-help book.

Nobody gets to become a board member of ANY company by just waltzing in and sitting down. Even family members in a family business must be invited in by the principles. I assume that Mr Hurting must have had some previous successes in business or the board wouldn't have looked to him in the first place. In other words, Mr Hurting wasn't a miserable spirited failure or emotionally dysfunctional sod in the community.

The story is also a tale about how the board members viewed a selection to the the board who was a poor fit for the existing personalities on the board.

It seems that Mr Hurting, didn't conform to the happy happy of the board's ideas and actually challenged them. That's bad shit in the board room, really.

In response, some of the board apparently took umbrage with the guy. Giving rise to behaviors that I will make 2 comments on:

1. People often default to protective thinking when challenged and thinking that 'there is something wrong with you because you don't agree with me' is very very common. You can see this on almost every page of GD where subject headings or messages claim someone is "crazy." Crazy you=sane me is the message behind these things. It's a fallacy in argument, but it is self-protective.

2. It was very damned convenient for all this to happen to the author, pastor-businessman, because it gave him a chance to channel Jesus or Mohammad and manifest heroic goodness and divine insight by saying the guy was hurting. Which on it's surface looks sympathetic, but is an even more nuanced and cynical application of the self-protective things discussed in observation 1 because it helps sell the book and puts change in the author's pocket.

Yes, I have a personality disorder, so you can blame my reply on my disorder (But, please see observation 1)