• Bright is turning nothing into something (think of the invention of the pre-Mac operating system at Xerox).
• Smart is turning something into everything (think how Steve Jobs lifted that secret and created Macintosh, and then how Bill Gates lifted it again and created Windows)
• Wise is knowing what’s important (think of Bill Gates now focusing on his and his wife’s foundation)

Where do you learn wisdom? You learn if from reading and if you’re fortunate spending time with wise people.

If you happen upon wise people, do everything you can to build a relationship with them, by being generous to them for the privilege of their spending time with you. They will change your life and change what you leave behind for the better.

I have been blessed to have known a few in my time including presently Warren Bennis. He knows what’s important and what isn’t. He is much more interesting than me (or most people I know), but his wisdom causes him to be a deep listener, which most wise people are.

To catch a taste of Warren live in a free teleforum, you won’t want to miss “Leading for a Lifetime” on July 29 at 10 AM PST/1 PM EST at Leading News. For more information see below:

The Leading Edge - Gold Medal Mindset - The Mind of an Olympian

The Secret to Marrying a Billionaire: Brains

Posted By Robert Frank On July 14, 2008 @ 4:09 pm In Lifestyle | 31 Comments

The key to marrying a billionaire, according to the media, is beauty. Grace, charm, intelligence, manners and a talent for flattery help, of course. Yet from Doris Duke to Melania Trump, billionaire wives have been expected first and foremost to be stunners — well-decorated accessories and showcases for their husband’s wealth.

Susan Dell (via fitness.gov)

But today’s billionaires are different. They want an equal, not a bauble.
Forbes’ most-recent Billionaire Wives List declares that “looks are great — but brains are even better.” It also helps for a billionaire wife to be successful in her own right.

Here are some examples:

Sergey Brin — In 2007, the Google guy married Ann Wojcicki, who he met when he sublet a garage from Ms. Wojcicki’s sister. She is a Yale grad who was working as a health-care analyst when they met. She’s now launched her own biotech firm.

Larry Page — The other Google guy married Lucy Southworth, a Stanford “biomedical informatics doctoral student” — which sure beats “interior decorator” as far as billionaire-wife job titles go.

Kenneth Griffin — The Citadel hedge-fund chief is married to Anne Dias Griffin, who runs her own asset-management firm, Aragon Global Management. This is proof that the key to a good financial marriage — unlike the key to a good hedge fund — is high correlations.

Michael Dell — The computer king’s wife, Susan Dell, is no slouch in the business department. She’s chairman of her own fashion line, called Phi, and a triathlete.

How about it, readers? Any other Billionaire Wives who demonstrate that “equal” is better than “bauble”?

Article printed from The Wealth Report - WSJ.com: http://blogs.wsj.com/wealth

URL to article: http://blogs.wsj.com/wealth/2008/07/14/the-secret-to-marrying-a-billionaire-brains/

Leadership is creating the possibility of a future
that wasn’t going to happen otherwise
and then enrolling others
into taking action to fulfill that future.

- Ivan Rosenberg, CEO, Frontier Associates

Through The Effective Leader Program, Ivan and his company recently did that with the Housing Authority of the County of San Bernardino who had previously seen themselves as simply a provider of low cost housing for the disadvantaged. When looking from the present forward they didn’t think they could do anything to reduce the waiting period of 8 years because of limited resources.

After working with them to imagine beyond their imagination, they committed to everybody having a stable and enriched quality of life. And housing is the first stepping stone to accomplishing that. By standing in this new future, and looking backwards to the present, they were able to develop a doable strategic plan for reducing the wait time to 10 days.

If you’re like me, you also love both smart and wise approaches to solving problems.

For those of you who like listening to something that is really smart, you won’t want to miss, Dan Heath’s Virtual Seminar, Creating High-Impact Ideas that Work, a great live presentation for you and your team on August 28 presented by the Center for Great Management.

And one of the best opportunities to get a huge serving of wisdom will be to catch leadership guru, Warren Bennis, co-author of the recent book, Judgment, and just released book, Transparency, when he is interviewed on “Leading for a Lifetime,” a free TeleForum on Tuesday, July 29 at Leading News, hosted by Marshall Goldsmith and Patricia Wheeler.

(c) 2008 Mark Goulston

Adultery in sports isn’t surprising to Doug Krikorian, a sports writer at The Press-Telegram in Long Beach, Calif. The more time he spent covering athletes, “I came to realize that marital infidelity was a commonplace occurence on the sporting scene,” Krikorian wrote in a July 12, 2008, column in the newspaper.

The issue of aduterous athletes isn’t a new one. But it’s certainly garnered more attention since Cynthia Rodriquez filed for divorce from Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriquez, alleging in court documents that the marriage has been “irretrievably broken because of the husband’s extramarital affairs.” A-Rod has been linked to several women, including pop superstar Madonna — a claim The Material Girl has denied.

Whatever happened and with whom, it’s not a suprising state of affairs, according to Peter E. Bronstein, a family law attorney with The Bronstein Schuck & Poller Group at Dreier LLP in New York. “Marriages for baseball players are difficult because the players travel a lot,” he said.

A spokeswoman for the National Institute of Marriage, a non-profit Christian counseling service, said travel — for athletes, celebrities or business travelers — often involves competition and sex can be used as a way to celebrate everything from winning a contract to a winning a game, according to a 2007 article in USA Today.

That’s true, says relationship expert Brenda Della Casa, author of “Cinderella Was a Liar,” which offers advice from real-life relationships. “Any career that puts you in a position where you are going to have access to adoring members of the opposite sex and situations where every whim is going to be catered to in terms of sexy vacations, clubs, etc. you are going to face temptation. This is why there is so much cheating that goes on during business trips and conferences. There is a sense of freedom and excess that is not normally there.”

Study results released in 2001 by Steven M. Ortiz, an assistant professor of sociology at Oregon State University, suggested a “culture of adultery” permeated professional sports. Ortiz, who presented his research on survival techniques of athletes’ wives at the American Sociological Association, interviewed the wives of 47 different professional athletes in the four major team sports - football, baseball, basketball and hockey — over a four-year period.

“One thing that I learned from the interviews is that these women are strong,” Ortiz said shortly after releasing the study. “If they don’t know what the lifestyle is like, they quickly learn. And then they develop strategies to manage that ongoing stress.”

“Money, power and celebrity are all aphrodisiacs. They draw out temptation like months to a flame. The problem is compounded because the sports figures are on the road for protracted periods, (often) without their spouses,” said New York divorce attorney Daniel E. Clement, who writes a blog about family and divorce law.

Jay P. Granat, a New York psychotherapist, author and founder of stayinthezone.com, which focuses on helping athletes achieve peak performance, doesn’t think “infidelity is any more frequent amongst athletes than it is among the general population.” The issue, he believes, is that “some athletes are used to getting a lot of adoration and attention and some have impulse control issues.”

It’s not just professional athletes, said Dr. Gilda Carle, relationship expert for match.com. “The thing about celebs, whether they are sports figures or not, is that civilians throw themselves at them. For better or for worse, famous people are made to be America’s royalty. Before they know it, the celebs buy into all the adulation they get, and they begin to believe their own press. Sports personalities in particular are body-consious, and their hormones drive them — as well as their fans.”

Complicating matters, Granat said, “Because some professional athletes have devoted so much time and energy to their craft, they can be a bit undeveloped when it comes to sustaininga mature and mongomous relationship.”

California psychotherapist, Tina B. Tessina, Ph.D., author of “The Commuter Marriage: Keep your Relationship Close While You’re Far Apart,” said “Pro sports is an area where grown men are encouraged not to be emotionally adult. It’s not necessary — emotional maturity should make a better player, not a worse one. But, a sports star is making money for a lot of people, so they (can often) indulge his (or her) baser instincts.”

Still, Della Casa said it’s not just athletes who indulge: “Conservative estimates say 60 percent of married men and 40 percent of married women are unfaithful to their partners at least once in their lives and they are not all rich or famous. You cannot prevent anyone from placing your mental, emotional and physical health at risk if they decide they want to cheat on you but you can sit down and discuss your expectations and boundaries and have a plan for when a partner is tempted and don’t kid yourself, many good, decent people get tempted, they just don’t cheat.”

TIPS FOR THE PROS (AND YOU) TO CONSIDER TO AVOID STRAYING

1. Set Ground Rules.
Know how you will respond before your partner acts on temptation, according to California psychiatrist Dr. Mark Goulston, author of “The 6 Secret of a Lasting Relationship: How to Fall in Love Again…and Stay There.” “Set up some ground rules before stuff happens such as, ‘I know that …you will be offered and tempted by other women, etc. You are certainly free to act on those impulses (because I can’t stop you), but the first time you do, I will have you move out…The second time… we will go to counseling and you will go to some kind of 12-step program to focus on this behavior you can’t control. I hope you don’t have a problem with that.’ Then the key is to do what you say you will do,” he said.

Tessina agreed. “Set boundaries, and let him know if he crosses them, you’ll leave and take his money with you.”

2. Maintain your Relationship.
Keep your relationship in tact by making certain you stay connected to your partner, Della Casa said. “Maybe sneak away and call one another or try and infuse your relationship with a bit of excess such as a night out at a club or a naughty night in once in a while so certain things don’t seem like once in a lifetime opportunities,” she said.

3. Get Some Help.
Talking to a counselor can help you find out why you want to act out, Della Casa said. “Regardless of what is being offered and by whom, there is never an excuse to betray your partner,” she said. “If you’re so tempted you’re losing sleep, I would highly suggest seeking out a good therapist to work on your issues because it’s not about your partner. ”

4. Put Yourself in your Partner’s Shoes.
Dr. Carle, who counsels celebrities in and out of the sports world, said they’re hit with tempation daily: “But there are plenty of temptations in all walks of life. To stray or not depends on four things: your personal self-respect; the respect you have for your mate; the boundaries you set and the way you communicate your expectations.”

Carle, whose recently published e-book, “How to Win when Your Mate Cheats,” explains how people feel when they’re cheated on by their partner, said her best piece of advice to anyone considering an affair is simple: “If you are tempted, put yourself in your mate’s shoes. How does that feel?”

No Usable Insight this week, just a story for all fathers and sons (and mothers and daughters) to remember.

Dr. Arun Gandhi, grandson of Mahatma Gandhi and founder of the M.K.Gandhi Institute for Nonviolence, in his June 9 lecture at the University of Puerto Rico, shared the following:

I was 16 years old and living with my parents at the institute my grandfather had founded 18 miles outside of Durban, South Africa, in the middle of the sugar plantations. We were deep in the country and had no neighbors, so my two sisters and I would always look forward to going to town to visit friends or go to the movies.

One day, my father asked me to drive him to town for an all-day conference, and I jumped at the chance. Since I was going to town, my mother gave me a list of groceries she needed and, since I had all day in town, my father asked me to take care of several pending chores, such as getting the car serviced.

When I dropped my father off that morning, he said, “I will meet you here at 5:00 p.m., and we will go home together.” After hurriedly completing my chores, I went straight to the nearest movie theatre. I got so engrossed in a John Wayne double-feature that I forgot the time. It was 5:30 before I remembered. By the time I ran to the garage and got the car and hurried to where my father was waiting for me, it was almost 6:00.

He anxiously asked me, “Why were you late?”

I was so ashamed of telling him I was watching a John Wayne western movie that I said, “The car wasn’t ready, so I had to wait,” not realizing that he had already called the garage.

When he caught me in the lie, he said: “There’s something wrong in the way I brought you up that didn’t give you the confidence to tell me the truth. In order to figure out where I went wrong with you, I’m going to walk home 18 miles and think about it.” So, dressed in his suit and dress shoes, he began to walk home in the dark on mostly unpaved, unlit roads. I couldn’t leave him, so for five-and-a-half hours I drove behind him, watching my father go through this agony for a stupid lie that I uttered.

I decided then and there that I was never going to lie again. I often think about that episode and wonder, if he had punished me the way we punish our children, whether I would have learned a lesson at all. I don’t think so. I would have suffered the punishment and gone on doing the same thing. But this single non-violent action was so powerful that it is still as if it happened yesterday. That is the power of non-violence.

It is not that often that you have the chance to hear such wisdom. If you want to treat yourself to some more, you won’t want to miss Warren Bennis, the world’s leading authority on leadership (and one of the wisest people around), being interviewed on “Leading for a Lifetime” at 9 AM PST/12 Noon EST July 29 at Leading News’ free live TeleForum hosted by the Patricia Wheeler and Marshall Goldsmith, the world’s preeminent executive coach. To register go to: Leading News TeleForum.

Christie Brinkley may say she didn’t know about her cheating husband, but experts say she had to suspect – and that he wanted to get caught.

The dirty details of the 54-year-old former swimsuit model’s marriage to 49-year-old architect Peter Cook have been public for more than a week as the couple’s divorce winds its way through the New York family court system. At issue in the divorce is millions in real estate, three boats and other investments as well as the custody of their two children, Jack, 13, the son Cook adopted from a previous Brinkley marriage, and Sailor, their child together.

In her testimony, Brinkley painted herself as a happily married woman who was unaware that her husband of 10 years had a pornography addiction and spent $3,000 a month purchasing graphic images online before graduating to a full-flown affair with Diana Bianchi, 18, whom he hired after meeting her at a local toy store in 2005.

“My world was completely shattered,” she said of the moment that she was told of her husband’s infidelity by the teen’s stepfather, a Southampton Beach police officer, who shared the information with her while she was at a speaking engagement in June 2006. “My life as I knew it had vanished.”

But marriage experts said she simply wasn’t telling the truth when she said she didn’t know something was wrong in her marriage before the affair was revealed. The truth, according to nationally-known psychotherapist Dr. Gilda Carle, is: “He was living in her shadow. When a partner is living in someone else’s shadow, the relationship doesn’t have a chance in hell.”

“She knew. Every single person always knows,” added Carle, author of the e-book “How to Win when your Man Cheats.” “They may not know the details but they know something.” As for Cook’s actions, Carle said: “Did he really think nobody would notice he was cheating on his wife – a wife that’s so well known? I think there was some part of him that wanted to get caught.”

Before the trial began, Brinkley fought to keep the media spectacle open to the public, an unusual move for a celebrity, many of whom fight to keep their private lives private. The move has allowed for the details of the couple’s intimate lives to become fodder for the traditional news media, bloggers and pundits alike.

Peter Bronstein, a family law attorney at Bronstein, Van Veek & Schuck LLC in New York, believes both sides are at fault. “Christie Brinkley is no saint in all this,” he said, pointing out her series of marriage failures. And, he said, “Peter Cook has done everything wrong he could do. His addiction to pornography …makes him a laughing stock to the world. Using a web cam to focus on yourself masturbating is as creepy as it gets.”

He said the divorce details have kept the focus off custody issues, which is what’s really at issue since the couple has a prenuptial agreement. Brinkley has said the only thing she’s told the children about the case was: “I think daddy has fallen out of love with me.” She said she’s also explained to them how important and loved they are.

College journalism instructor Lenore Skomal of Erie, Pa., was surprised by Brinkley’s insistence to make the divorce details public. “I always come from the journalistic perspective to protect the public’s right to information. But that right has to be tempered by the question: The right to know what?” she said. “To my mind, the details behind the breakdown of a marriage are not covered under that right and serve no functional purpose.”

Skomal believes Brinkley is just trying ” to embarrass her soon-to-be ex-husband and publicly force him to ante up for his philandering deeds.” That’s unfortunate, according to Kenia Maldonado, a family case analyst in New York State and founder of NY Anger Training:“…Divorce should not be a selfish matter especially when there are children involved. Exposure of all details in the media can cause the children to be ridiculed and ostracized.”

Added Skomal: “The problem is that he is … the father of their children, and even if he is the biggest louse this side of the Pacific, the kids don’t need to hear or read about it in the mainstream media….I fear that Brinkley …has made a crucial tactical mistake and her kids will sadly pay for it.”

THREE LESSONS TO LEARN FROM BRINKLEY’S DIVORCE

1. Always be Emotionally Aware.
In news reports, Brinkley said she sensed her husband was distancing himself from her for months before she discovered the infidelity, said Dr. Carle. “That’s a red flag,” said Carle, who said spouses who sense something similar should ask themselves two questions: What does it mean? And, what should be done about it?

“You should always be emotionally aware of everything going on between you and your spouse,” she said. “This is particularly important if you have settled into a routine in your marriage.”

2. Think about Your Children.
Maldonado cautioned divorcing spouses to “…take into consideration what types of information they disclose about their divorce to friends in the community and family because these types of details can come back to haunt you in the long run.”

Carle agreed, adding: “Children should never hear this. It’s not fair to them…You can understand why she wants to get him back, but at what price?”

Best-selling author and California clinical psychiatrist Dr. Mark Goulston said the couple’s children “at a risk for serious relationship problems” later in the lives for two reasons. The first may well involve the nature of genetics, he said: “…Self-centeredness may run in both parents.” The second potential problem lies in nurture, he said, given that the children are “being reared in a family where the father betrayed the vow to the wife and kids” and “the mother betrayed the vow to protect and prepare children for the best life possible by airing all the scandal” in public.

3. Forget and Remember.
Infidelity, according to Dr. Carle, can be an opportunity for a couple to improve a marriage. Of couples who face the issue, according to the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago, 35 percent get a divorce — saying they wish they’d done it sooner, she said. Another 65 percent decide to stay together and make their marriages even better than they were before the affair, she added.

First, she said, “You have to remember what got you to this situation so you don’t get into the same situation again. The forgiveness is for yourself,” she added.

Carle said turning a negative experience, like infidelity, into a positive one means looking for the lessons that life is trying to teach us, understanding them and learning from them. We all have lessons that we have to learn in life,” she said. “Perhaps one of the lessons for this woman is to develop depth behind superficiality. She’s a gorgeous woman, but that only goes so far.”

Instead of doing what Brinkley did, trying to get back at her soon-to-be ex in a public forum, Carle suggests another way: “To me, the best revenge is living well,” she said.

Children get mannerisms and attitudes from both parents
but develop their inner calm and feeling of well being
from how much their parents like, trust and respect each other.

Should Christie Brinkley go public with her divorce?

Increasing research shows that a significant part of a child’s mind and personality is influenced not by how their parents react to the child, but by how their parents respond to each other.

What becomes frustrating and at times demoralizing to children is not so much that mothers and fathers disagree or argue (as they inevitably will), but that parents continue to argue over the same things and never definitively resolve them once and for all.

When children observe parents arguing without resolution they see emotion and reason locked in a “zero sum” fight instead of cooperating with each other. When they then internalize into their personality that emotion and reason cannot work together, their inner sense of calm and well-being is replaced by restlessness. It is as if at any moment their own emotion and reason are on the brink of doing battle in their mind reminiscent of what they observe between their parents. And this destroys inner calm and well being.

As the lack of cooperation between the emotion and reason in their observed world can create chaos in their life, the lack of cooperation between emotion and reason in their own mind can create flaws in their developing personalities.

The best example of how emotion and reason can work together between a mother and father utilizes “tag team parenting.” This is when one parent being better at logical problem solving tells the child to go to the other for comforting if that is what the child seems to need. And conversely when the other parent who is better at emotional comforting tells the child to go speak to the other for help with solving a problem if what the child needs more is good advice.

Bottom Line: Both of Brinkley’s young children are at risk for serious relationship problems in their adult life given:

1. Nature - genetics, i.e. divorce and apparently self-centeredness may run in both parents.
2. Nurture - being reared in a family where the father betrayed the vow to his wife and kids and took away someone to be proud of for his own personal needs and where the mother betrayed the vow to protect and prepare children for the best life possible by airing all the scandal for her own personal needs.

How Independent are Your Children?

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© 2008 Mark Goulston

The measure of true independence
is how self-reliant, resourceful and coachable you are.

I work with many successful CEO’s, executives, senior managers to become even more successful. Something they have in common and in spades are self-reliance, resourcefulness and coachability.

Self-reliance means that their default mode is to be responsible and take on increasing responsibility to further their companies, their teams, and their missions. They don’t pass the buck, make excuses or stay submerged in indecisiveness.

Resourcefulness means that they are clear about the resources they need to accomplish their goals and are not hesitant in accessing those resources. They are also reciprocators by nature, meaning they don’t take other’s effort for granted and give back to those who help them out.

Coachability means they seek, listen to and act upon solid, relevant input from others (even Tiger Woods has had coaches his entire career). In realizing the value of such coaching they have learned to also be great coaches to their people. They are NOT “know-it-alls,” but are constantly seeking to know all of it so they can make the best decisions.

What is the relevance of this to your children and the 4th of July?

The more self-reliant, resourceful and coachable your children are, the better their lives. The less they are of each of those (and the more they are overly dependent or act like “know-it-alls”), the worse their lives and more miserable you will be.

Use July 4 to have a conversation with your kids about what being “independent” means to them. After they answer it, ask them what they think about about the notions of being self-reliant (translate it to being able to depend on yourself), resourceful (translate it to being able to come up with solutions and the best help for problems they may face) and coachable (translate it to being able to find the best people to give them the best advice to help them do whatever they want to do).

Read more of Mark’s tips at: Divorced on the Fourth

Happy July 4th: How Independent are You?

Papertrain Your Problem Relatives for July 4th

Subscribe to Usable Insights

Hear and receive special offers from Mark’s recent record-breaking (1600 registrants) June 25 Leading News teleforum at: Special Offers.

(c) 2008 Mark Goulston

An ounce of flattery
will get you a day of good behavior.

Do you have any relatives or friends that ruin everyone’s time on July 4 and you can’t un-invite them? Do you feel guilty at wishing they’ll either have other plans or be too sick to come? Do you wish there was a way to paper train them so they don’t mess on everyone else’s good time?

Here is how using a little applied emotional intelligence can save the day. One thing most of these high-maintenance (easy to upset, difficult to please) people have in common is that they feel as if the world is not treating them well enough. In essence they don’t feel important or special enough in the world (usually because their awful personality has gotten in the way of success which they are bitter about).

This is where thinking ahead and using the “i” (as in “important”) word can do wonders.

Have the male of the house that is doing dinner call these problem people 5 to 7 days ahead of time and say to them: “I’m calling to ask you a favor because you’re a very important part of our holiday gatherings (i.e. “because we haven’t figured out how to keep you from coming or shut you up”). Many of us don’t see or even talk to each other except for these holidays and you never know who’s really having a bad time with a terrible illness, a recent death, or some big financial problems. So these gathering can be very awkward and since you are such a consistent and important guest I was hoping you might be able to greet people when they come in, and help pull them out of their shell by asking them how they and their family are doing and about anything new that’s been going on with them.”

Having the male of the house do something so forward thinking and so gracious (it’s not that often that a man asks for help or directions) and also giving these people who feel so cheated by life the chance to feel important is not only quite flattering, it is disarming. The problem person is going to have trouble responding with his/her real modas operandi, i.e. “No thanks. I was planning on coming and ruining everyone’s time like I do every year.”

Then when July 4 occurs, this same male should greet that person at the door, touch them on the arm and say: “I hope I can count on you to help make people feel comfortable after they arrive.” Then add before they can respond, “Oh, excuse me. I have to go take care of some things.”

This may not stop a dyed in the wool jerk from spoiling July 4, but it may serve as a deterrent.

In the mean time, Happy 4th of July and may this tip help you declare your independence from the jerks in your life.

© 2008 Mark Goulston

Happy July 4, How Independent are You?

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Hear and receive special offers from Mark’s recent Leading News teleforum at: Special Offers.

The views expressed in these blog posts are those of the author and not of the Chicago Sun-Times.

Basil & Spice: Love & Relationships!

Basil & Spice: Love & Relationships–Real insight on how to find a mate and keep the spark glowing! FirstLooks! BackStories! Expert Bloggers!

3 Relationship Killers and 3 Relationship Builders

Friday, June 20, 2008

Dr. Mark Goulston is a former UCLA professor who helps high performing leaders, senior management and sales people reach their full potential using skills he learned training FBI and police hostage negotiators. He is a member of the National Association of Corporate Directors and the Worldwide Association of Business Coaches and writes the weekly Tribune syndicated career advice column, “Solve Anything with Dr. Mark” and columns on leadership for FAST COMPANY and Directors Monthly and is an expert at People Jam. He is frequently called upon to share his expertise with regard to contemporary business, national and world news by television, radio and print media including: Wall Street Journal, Harvard Business Review, Fortune, Newsweek, Time, Los Angeles Times, ABC/NBC/CBS/Fox/CNN/BBC News, Oprah, and Today. Mark Goulston is the author of The 6 Secrets of a Lasting Relationship, Get Out of Your Own Way: Overcoming Self-Defeating Behavior, Get Out of Your Own Way at Work and PTSD for Dummies. For more information visit: www.markgoulston.com.

Guest Blogger Mark Goulston–

Don’t leave (or stay) home with it – the 3 Relationship Killers

As a couples and family therapist for more than 25 years I have grown tired of listening to couples and family members not listen to each other. I find that when I try to mediate the he said/she said, zero sum game, childish (if not infantile) debates the best that is achieved is a temporary truce. More often it has felt like putting a temporary band aid on a hemorrhaging gaping wound.

It may be that I have grown weary of interceding between such people, or am demonstrating my countertransference (i.e. my negative reaction to them carrying over from my reaction to the hundreds of such couples I have seen in my career), or perhaps I have discovered what really kills and conversely helps relationships. I choose to believe the latter.

The 3 Relationship Killers:

1. Mental weakness – is the inability to feel something negative without acting negative, to feel hurt without getting angry (or depressed), to feel afraid without running away, to feel upset without getting upset. It is your lower/reptile/acting out brain riding roughshod over your upper/human/thinking brain when your middle/mammalian/emotional brain is feeling something.
2. Presumptuousness – is jumping to conclusions without really knowing the facts or what the other person is really thinking or feeling. It is imputing motives to them that are not accurate or true. At it’s worst it manifests itself as the “ignorant blamer,” a person who doesn’t know and doesn’t want to know the truth, who then proceeds to take absolutely no responsibility for their actions.
3. Selfishness – is what fuels the upper two killers. It is not caring enough to not act upon upset feeling nor caring enough to get the true facts or find out where the other person is really coming from.

The 3 Relationship Builders:

1. Mental toughness – is the ability to feel upset (vs. denying it) without getting upset and then reacting negatively back at the other person. Instead of being destructive, it is containing your upset feelings, pausing and thinking what’s the best response for the situation and then acting.
2. Curiosity – is as Stephen Covey said: “Seeking first to understand, then to be understood.” It is not merely hearing what people say, but listening to what they really mean to say, most of which is located between their words rather than in them.
3. Unselfishness – is being generous. It’s caring enough about the other person to modify how you are saying what you are saying. It’s wishing to make a situation better more than you need to be right. The greatest manifestation is selfless sacrifice. It’s what I was bathed in when I recently attended the Memorial Day program at the Los Angeles National Cemetery, watched Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts carry the pictures of the brave and selfless men and women who had been killed in Afghanistan and Iraq and heard TV actor and Marine Hugh O’Brien tell the audience that we were there to honor: “the all who gave some, and especially the some who gave all” so the rest of us could be free after which I returned to the world of spoiled children and adults driving their BMW’s and Mercedez on their cell phones oblivious to (if not irritated by) the homeless veterans on the corner of Sepulveda and Wilshire Boulevards one block away in Westwood, California.

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Thanks to all my loyal subscribers, colleagues, friends and their friends, my June 25 Leading News TeleForum set the record of most registrants - 1600 - beating the prior record of 900, by 700 people. There was also a 90 % retention rate for people staying the full length of the program.

My guess is it wasn’t just about being loyal. People were no doubt interested in the title: “Prevent Your Career’s Greatest Tragedy.” That’s probably because if they are like me, they have already done things they regret and want to make sure they don’t do those things again or other things they will regret.

Coming to the end of your career or your life with much more regret than satisfaction is a tragedy, because it’s preventable.

Warren Buffett has said that people don’t succeed, because they get in their own way, not because the world doesn’t let them.

Continuing to engage in self-defeating behavior (rather than success producing behavior) is how you get in your own way.

The reason it is so difficult to stop self-defeating behavior is because it usually makes you feel better for the moment. It feels good to procrastinate (until you then have to do it and feel much more pressure), get angry (until it makes things worse), say “yes” when you should say “no” to get someone off your back (until you just have to do it again later).

The reason we engage in self-defeating behavior is because it relieves stress and prevents distress. When you’re stressed you feel tense, but can still hold onto your goals. However when the stress becomes too much, it crosses over into distress and at that point you let go of your goals to focus on relief and that is what self-defeating behavior offers.

But after you engage in it, you have to hide the mess you’ve made from others, and then hide it from your self-respect. Moreover, others who handle the stress better, will pass you by.

To hear the TeleForum, go to: Prevent Your Career’s Greatest Tragedy.

To recognize 40 common self-defeating behaviors at work, check out: Table of Contents - Get Out of Your Own Way at Work.

To recognize 40 common self-defeating behaviors in life, check out: Table of Contents - Get Out of Your Own Way.

To begin to overcome self-defeating behaviors at work check out:12 Steps to Get Out of Your Own Way at Work.

Oops, I forgot to include a Usable Insight. How about this one adapted from the talk?

Before you can be fruitful and multiply,
you need to be surgical and subtract.

If you’re having trouble sticking to a diet or exercise program, take this observation into account. Most people fall off a diet or exercise program after they have just had contact with a person or situation that frustrated or exasperated them. After such an encounter that drains you, the last thing you want to do is eat healthily or exercise (if they are not already things you like).

So…

1. take out a piece of paper
2. draw a vertical line down the middle
3. list the people and situations on the left side that suck the life out of you
4. list the people and situations on the right side that give you energy
5. make a commitment to minimize contact with those people and situations on the left and maximize contact with those on the right

To take advantage of the offerings made at the Leading Edge event go to: Dr. Mark’s TeleForum

P.S. an MP3 file of my TeleForum will be available shortly.

(c) 2008 Mark Goulston

Time flies when it’s all about you

I recently went on a hike with two of my closest and smartest guy friends (an investment banker and a lawyer). When we returned to the car I remarked, “Did the way back to the car seem much shorter than when we hiked out on the trail?”

My first friend said, “I didn’t notice much of a difference.”

My second friend said, “That’s because you did most of the talking.”

I was embarrassed and quipped back, “That must explain why the first half seemed to take so long.”

I am more neurotic than I am narcissistic, which means I feel hurt much more often than I feel angry when I am told something negative. Neurotics and narcissists are similar in that they often need too much from others. Neurotics need to be reassured and loved too much of the time. Narcissists need to be revered and obeyed too much of the time. Healthy people want to be reassured, loved, revered and obeyed some of the time, but they don’t need it the way neurotics and demand it the way narcissists do.

It also became aware of how quickly narcissists can become angry and even enraged when they’re not catered to. Narcissists are often very appealing, because they seem so strong and when they’re romancing you, they can make you feel: “This person (most often men, but increasingly now also women) will take care of me and protect me from harm.” The problem is that early on when you are the object of desire you can feel that way, but after they have you, too often you learn that their strength is mainly stubbornness and their desire is more often liking you for the way you make them feel about themselves. It turns out not to be about liking you.

As a result, it is a wise thing to smoke out narcissists, before you become involved with one. Here is how to do it:

Get them talking to the point where they are going on and on and seem to be enjoying themselves.

After they finish say to them: “Gee, I can really appreciate how much you enjoy talking about ________ (fill in the blank about the main subject they were speaking about).

Wait for them to nod or say, “Yes.”

Then say with a coy smile: “You would have enjoyed it even more, if I was listening.”

That may seem cruel, but in reality it is teasing someone who may be a little too full of themselves. The neurotic will get embarrassed (as I did above) and apologize; the narcissist will show a flash of anger.

If you are dealing with a narcissist, run. Think you can change one, think again and read Steven Carter’s and Julia Sokol’s book: Help! I’m in love with a Narcissist.

Growing your business through the power of relationships

I was invited to a very unusual event recently. It was a meeting about “storytelling.” It was hosted by Peter Guber. Peter is an Academy Award-winning producer of movies, including Rain Man, The Color Purple and Batman. He is the past CEO of Sony Corp. and currently chairman and CEO of Mandalay Entertainment.

Peter is clearly passionate about the power of “story” and considers it the “secret sauce” that has enabled him to achieve his success. Consequently, he decided to create an opportunity for a diverse group of experts to come together to exchange ideas–be inspired, enlightened and enriched–but, most important, to share stories!

Peter invited about 16 people (including “yours truly”) along with individuals such as Warren Bennis–one of the world’s foremost experts on leadership; Keith Ferrazzi–author of “Never Eat Alone“; and Mark Victor Hansen–co-author of the “Chicken Soup for the Soul” series, as well as many other “storytellers” from various businesses, backgrounds and areas of expertise.

Effective storytelling is an important part of one’s emotional intelligence. I’ve always believed in using stories to make a point but never really gave a lot of thought to some of the “hows” and “whys” of their effectiveness. There were a number of “take-aways” for me from this meeting that I would like to share with you.

Storytelling is about tapping into a passion about some topic. It is about taking the listener to a place that is viceral, visual, concrete, emotional and possibly unexpected. One of the participants, Dr. Mark Goulston, said that “a story is a portable storage unit for one’s dreams, fears, hopes, humor and sorrows that people visit–or visits people–from time to time for them to stay in contact with their humanity.” [The group really liked this definition, and so did I.]

Mark Victor Hansen said that when the authors were working on the Chicken Soup series, they were looking for stories that gave or gave people:

• God bumps or goose bumps
• Happy tears
• A change in perception
• Weakness in the knees
• Change in your life

One of the best comments of the day came from Peter, who said, “what if” is more powerful than “how to” in a story. Very true, indeed. Getting people to think of the possible rather than simply look at the present can truly help make a great story.

After spending an entire day talking about what it takes to make a good story, I verified the fact that it is very difficult to describe to someone “how” to tell a good story. However, you sure know one when you hear it!