Welcome to the first blog post! It is my intention to post something here every Tuesday and Thursday. I welcome your comments and suggestions as to how this section can be most helpful to you. If you would like to contribute a blog of your own on any topic related to Stage Climbing and/or its mission, which is to help you reach your highest potential in any area of your life, please email me personally: Michael@MichaelBroder.com.

I thought I’d make this first blog about the stages that I will be referring to often in future blogs. They form the foundation of Stage Climbing.

The seven stages outlined below, represent a choice of seven lenses that are available to you, through which you can view any aspect of your life, such as; How you operate in your relationships or career, how you view spirituality, how you parent, what motivates you or how you relate to virtually anything. Knowing the stages at which you are operating in any part of your life provides you with a benchmark in your Stage Climbing process. How you are living your life then becomes much clearer to you. The stages can also provide you with helpful insights for understanding or resolving an issue—past, present, or future. Begin by identifying your present stage —the stage you most identify with right now in any area of life you would like to focus on. Once you are clear as to where you are now (your present stage) and where you would like to be (your target stage), the only task that remains is to clarify what you need to do to be operating out of your chosen target stage for that part of your life. That will be much of our focus here, as well as applying the principles of Stage Climbing to the issues and personalities of the day. It’s most likely that you normally operate out of different life stages in different areas of your life. Most of us do. So as you explore the seven stages and calibrate where you are now versus where you want to be, consider one area of your life that you wish to understand better or improve upon in some way. It might be your relationship, career, finances, spiritual life, you as a parent or boss, etc. Start with the stage you most identify with now – then indentify the stage where you most want to be operating:

Stage One	Only possible stage during infancy; later can potentially render one profoundly dependent upon others and result in feelings of inadequacy and victimhood.
Stage Two	Typical stage for toddlers; thereafter, a life without internalized limits can result in primitive and undisciplined behavior, extreme self-centeredness, the tendency to act out and create much chaos for yourself and others.
Stage Three	Usual stage through late childhood; thereafter can morph into various degrees of an authoritarian personality and/or rigid rule abider who is extremely inflexible regarding rules and ideas.
Stage Four	Typical stage throughout adolescence; as an adult, can result in anxiety, depression, self-doubt, alienation, shame, and a wide variety of neurotic and approval-seeking behaviors.
Stage Five	Typical stage for an adult in our society, where you often think of yourself as a role juggler, or the sum of all your life roles. Your characteristic view of life at this stage is often comfortable, dispassionate, or neutral. This stage offers the ideal attitudes and frame of mind to function best, while doing what is merely necessary to keep your life together and functioning in order to live in the higher stages. While a Stage Five frame of mind is important to have at times with respect to certain relationships and activities, it often results in disappointment when you expect higher degrees of fulfillment than this stage can deliver.
Stages Six and Seven are the target stages that most people aspire to. As you understand Stages Six and Seven, it will become clear that by removing anything that blocks that natural drive to be your best, you will quickly get to the zone in which you can naturally and effortlessly operate at your highest potential. Most people view life at the target stages as life at its very best. It is at the target stages that you feel the very best about yourself. The target stages represent what you are here for, or from a spiritual perspective, your life’s purpose.
Stage Six	Mature adult (determined not by chronological age but by the way you conduct your life) with a strong integrity and sense of self. At Stage Six, you rise above your roles; and operate according to your own unique internally generated values and passions. To the extent that these become your driving forces; genuine spirituality, fulfillment, and happiness result. This is the stage in which you love, enjoy, excel, and create in your own distinctive way.
Stage Seven	The highest stage attainable. You are beyond needing self-gratification, and find fulfillment as a result of your benevolence and your unique contribution to others, to the world, and to how you can be an agent of change in some large or small way. At Stage Seven, your purpose outside of yourself has more importance to you than what is purely in your own self-interest.
In the privacy of your own mind, ask yourself if there’s a part of your life where you would like to be operating at a higher stage. Then know that with some persistence, that could be your reality very soon. On Thursday, I’ll talk about Steve Jobs and the Steve Jobs in you!

“Stage Climbing is one of the most innovative and brilliant models for helping people to change at the deepest levels. I have successfully used it on myself as well as with the clients I counsel, and strongly recommend it to anyone seriously seeking to gain a better understanding of themselves and take control of their lives very quickly.”

 — Karyne B. Wilner, PsyD., Clinical Psychologist and Director, Professional Program in Core Living Therapy

“When I read Dr Michael Broder’s latest book, Stage Climbing , I realized why I firmly believe that this book will help you uniquely transform your life. Broder’s three “Es” of Experience, Expertise, and Eclecticism were applied to this book. Broder’s new Stage Climbing theory synthesizes some of the greatest thinking of modern psychology while creatively adding an easy to use practical (“simple but not simplistic”…) approach toward reaching your highest potential with remarkable efficiency.”

— Richard A. Lippin MD, Chief Medical Officer, Tobyhanna Army Depot Occupational Health Clinic, and Former Chair, Mental Health Committee-American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine

“I fully recommended Stage Climbing, by Dr. Michael Broder. He has a special way of engaging the reader and his compassion shines through. If you follow his ideas you will ascend to good mental health.”

— Windy Dryden, Ph.D., Professor of Psychotherapeutic Studies, Goldsmiths University of London