The Website of Dr. Mark Goulston

also seen at Basil and Spice:

When as right as you thought you were
is as wrong as you turn out to be,
you begin to doubt every decision you’ve ever made
and are about to make,
and your life comes to a halt.

To counter this, consider these facts that you can be sure of:

1. If you can’t tolerate the volatility, focus entirely on as many recession proof job/career (even though business may be down) as you can. Do a search on the Internet for “recession proof” occupations.
2. When the volatility and dust finally settles, whoever hits the ground running competent in skills that are always necessary for success will succeed. Retrain, refine, learn or develop skills that you may not have had or taken the time to learn when you were too busy working and that will set you up for success in that recession proof job. Don’t restrict yourself to technical skills; include speaking, writing and networking skills as well.
3. Especially in distrustful times, people do not care what you know or what you can do, until they know what you have already done for someone like them that produced a positive, measurable result in something they are now wanting to accomplish. Make a list of things you have done or were significantly responsible for that produced a positive measurable result for anyone else. List the jobs and companies that most urgently need what you have gotten done for others. Don’t restrict yourself to your specific occupation. For instance my specific occupation is actually clinical psychiatrist, but in my career I have been able to get people who hate each other back on the same page and actually rooting for each other. And that has much more application (to executive/management teams and boards of directors) than a psychiatric practice.
4. People who are trusted by those you want to do business with are in the best position to make an introduction or referral to you. Make a list of such people who you already know and others you would like to know who are in such a position.
5. When you do onto others what is important to them, everyone except the “dyed in the wool” takers will sooner or later feel grateful and this will eventually turn into generosity back towards you. Make a list of what you can do or get done for those individuals that is important to them, connect with them and then give it to them. They may not reciprocate at first, but if you persist and are patient, your generosity will engender gratitude and generosity in return. They may not reciprocate at first, but if you persist and are patient, your generosity will engender gratitude and generosity in return.

A final suggestion. Instead of pulling more into yourself, go out and volunteer for something that helps your community and people who will in turn be grateful to you. When instead of becoming more self-involved you make the world a little better, it frees you up and also causes you to feel more deserving of good things happening to you.

It really is true that what goes around, comes around. So get started today going and giving around you.

A final caveat.  Fear more often brings out the worst instead of the best in people.  And that worst often shows itself in how you treat others.  One of the best ways to make sure this doesn’t happen to you is to identify such success defeating behaviors.  One of the best people to help you with this is Marshall Goldsmith, preeminent coach and author of the WSJ best selling book, “What Got You Here, Won’t Get You There.”

If you have a team of high performers and want to help them reach their full potential, on January 14 from 11-12:30 PM PST, 12-1:30 GMT, 1-2:30 PM CST, 2-3:30 PM EST you won’t want to miss the live webinar, Leadership Strategies for Managers featuring Marshall Goldsmith and hosted by me through the Center for Great Management.

As a subscriber to my Usable Insight mailing list, enter coupon code “goldsmith 50″ and save $50 off each virtual seminar’s regular price of $349

Finally, I hope you’ll visit some of my political blogs at the Huffington Post

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 6th, 2009 at 6:46 pm and is filed under Events, Usable Insights. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.