Perhaps you’ve worn weary of the endless speculation of what the president will do and say next and why Trump won’t admit defeat in the 2020 election.
Unbridled force, determination and an obsession with winning are all really good attributes… when you’re trying to get a bunch of people out of a burning building. Not so much when someone skips ahead of you in line at the local Dairy Queen. And as many would argue, potentially disastrous when dealing with a crippling pandemic and serious threats to the basic tenets of our democracy.
Trump won’t admit defeat because he’s an exhausted wood
As I’ll explain in a minute, President Trump is a Wood Archetype. Wood types have their own set of strengths and vulnerabilities, just like all the other types. When we are at our worst, our most stressed and exhausted, the extremes of our type break to the surface.
Since the election results started pouring in, President Trump has been an exhausted wood.
Exhausted Woods tend to adapt to stress poorly. Their anger escalates quickly when triggered and they become woefully un-self-aware of the impact their explosive moods have on others.
Woods in a maladaptive state can construe even the slightest potential snub as egregious criticism. To them, a mild comment can feel like an attack requiring audacious and immediate action. The other four types (Fire, Earth, Metal and Water), can find themselves feeling pummeled in the wake of a stressed Wood reactive state.
The Predictive Nature of the Five Archetypes
I help people understand and solve personal and relationship challenges with a system called the Five Archetypes. (Here’s a short video that explains the basics.) Getting stuck, or addicted to overdoing your style of engagement is more common than you think. It’s actually at the root of most interpersonal disharmony. We overindulge our usual tactics and lose jobs, friends, lovers.
What’s frightening is that most of us are remarkably blind to this personal liability. Our lack of self-awareness leads to painful self-sabotage, yet we cast fault in everyone else’s direction when things fall apart. We assume the other folks involved are nuts for not seeing things our way.
There are five specific ways we take our interactive style too far. Do you recognize yours?
We can become addicted to:
- Having fun (Fire Engagement)
- Pleasing people in relationships (Earth Engagement)
- Creating order (Metal Engagement)
- Thinking about the truth (Water Engagement)
- Needing to win (Wood Engagement) (does this seem like anyone we’ve been reading about lately?)
The Five Archetypes is a system that explains and solves conflict. It correlates your interactive style to one of five natural ways of engaging. The five are:
- Wood – The Trailblazer
- Fire – The Eternal Optimist
- Earth – The Caregiver
- Metal – The Architect
- Water – The Philosopher
Based on ancient wisdom and frontier science, this method helps you deeply understand yourself so you can predict and overcome pitfalls in relationships. It helps you build resilience to stress, increase creative problem-solving capacity and communicate effectively.
One of the most remarkable characteristics of the Five Archetypes is its power to gauge your behavior: in stress, in success, in relationships and in fulfilling your life’s purpose.
We can know why Trump does what he does
Since The Five Archetypes is a predictive model, when we understand Trump’s archetypal nature, we can explain:
- What truly motivates his actions and thoughts
- How he’s most likely to react in a crisis
- Why he can’t admit defeat
Trump hasn’t taken my online Five Archetypes assessment, which would disclose the exact amount of each of the five archetypes in his nature. So, bear with me as I engage my intuitive skills to guess what his scores would most likely reveal.
We have a mix of all five archetypes in our nature. One serves as our primary and the other four fall in line in an order that modifies the way we interact with our environment. Based on my observations of Trump’s behavior over time, I believe his combination comprises:
When Wood types are feeling safe, they rock. They teach us that no obstacle is insurmountable. But Trump is a Wood type in overdrive, without the balancing support of Earth and Metal. So he will:
- Escalate quickly into anger
- Feel impetuously compelled to win above all else
- Care so much about other people’s opinions of him that he will get caught up in proving those attitudes wrong; he could even begin to doubt his own self-worth as a result of the perceived criticism.
Why Can’t Trump Ever Admit Defeat?
A Wood type who feels insecure is like that kid who tosses the game board when it’s clear he’s going to lose. Ya. Trump is that kid.
Check it out.
As a primary Wood type, Trump is all about action, ambition, achievement and movement. He dodges any question he dislikes, instead taking his time in front of the cameras to tell you what he wants you to know. He feels invincible. He dares you to get in his way and sees no obstacle to taking what he wants when he wants it.
With low Earth, he has no time, nor tolerance for small talk. He cares about his family in protective and practical ways rather than by showing public displays of affection. He doesn’t wait for a consensus and has little use for meetings, briefings and brainstorming. He sees himself as a visionary, a real trailblazer. He thinks he’s here to change the trajectory of the country and with low Metal he has no love lost for what he considers to be antiquated rules or outdated structures.
Trump Under Stress
When he isn’t getting adequate rest, nutrition and exercise, nor attending to his emotional health or expanding his mental capacity, Trump becomes reactive rather than creative when triggered. In stress, he escalates into anger, frustration, volatility, tension and impulsiveness. His biggest fears include criticism, powerlessness, confinement and not being wanted.
In a crisis, Wood types become pushy and stubborn. Trump won’t see the value in compassion and empathy and instead will become defiant, ignoring social norms and expectations. He will care about winning above all else and become fiercely independent, insisting he knows better than anyone else. Which means, though Trump may be extreme, he won’t admit defeat as we saw from a recent tweet, just a few hours after he seemed to be accepting his defeat:
Above all, Trump’s overactive Wood and low Earth and Metal natures manifest as an inability to recognize when the need to win has become obsessive and is no longer serving him or his community.
Wood Types at Their Best
As a Fire type, I believe in the potential of humanity. I almost always prefer to look at the bright side, so I want to leave you with a spot of radiant possibility.
Wood is also remarkably good! We all need Wood energy to balance us out when we feel stuck making decisions or realizing our dreams. Wood types at their best look like this:
- They exercise the freedom to choose courage and compassion over anger
- They trailblaze new paths for others to follow
- They are pioneers, coaching everyone to achieve their own goals
A balanced Wood type lives with bravery, heart and integrity. This high-conscious path is possible and accessible to every Wood archetype who becomes self-aware and grounded in compassion and mindfulness.
Now that sounds good to me.