That spun my head around after I heard Ike share this with me and the twenty people in one of the incredible “Contrary Marketing” workshops that he and partner Andrew Sokol conduct in Los Angeles.

Even though I wasn’t in the entertainment business, I could relate to wanting people to think I was great after I spoke to them in a group or even met them one on one.  What I realized is that I was much more focused on impressing people (as a reaction to not feeling very impressive inside) than I was on helping them.

My inner embarrassment and even shame was palpable.  Fortunately, I have reached a point in life where I berate myself less after such discoveries and instead learn to do and be better.

I think what I learned can help you as well.

I have heard it said by many charismatic keynote speakers that “we are all in the sales.”  That may have been true up until we were all hoisted by own petard with the financial meltdown of the past year and a half.  I think the truth is that “we are all in service.”

If you accept and embrace that, I would advise you approach every meeting with every prospective or current customer or client with the mindset, “What needs to happen for them to feel grateful after our meeting?”  Unless you are specifically there to entertain them (as in a motivational keynote), then the answer is that they would leave meeting with you feeling satisfied and thinking: “You got my situation, you got my take on my situation, you got me and you provided me with a solution, service or product that will best help me accomplish what is most important, critical and urgent to me.”

For example, since I am in the interpersonal solution business, I have discovered that people will be most grateful to me if after a keynote, workshop or during our meeting the most important, critical and urgent problems and opportunities that involve getting through to people become clarified and they leave with a prescriptive solution that is implementable by them and their people (i.e. they don’t have to be a rocket scientist or a “shrink” to do it).

The next time you speak or meet with a prospective or current client or customer, what needs to happen so they will be most grateful to you?  Address that and you will really be impressive.

Read about Krieger-Sokol’s Contrary Marketing and how to turn marketing into making you money instead of costing you money

One of my dearest friends and supports, Ward Wieman, died on Saturday after a prolonged and valiant battle against cancer. I would like to say he was a mentor, but the respect and caring he had for me (and many like me) was so much that he would prefer to think of us as friends.

I am not alone in the deep sorrow I feel. I try not to cry in public, but I actually welcome the feeling of how much Ward meant to me and others. And my tears are not just about missing him, but about being grateful to him.

Ward’s entire life was to be of service and to take and make the effort to truly understand you and then to help you in any way he could. He was one of the most selfless people I have ever known and having him in my life always made me want to be a better man.

Nearly fifteen years ago, Ward saved my bacon when after making an afternoon presentation to a consulting group I felt like a total failure. My topic was, “How to Get Paid What You’re Worth as a Consultant” and I had made the foolish mistake of opening my talk by trying some gimmick to impress this group. It went over like a lead balloon and my presentation proceeded to deteriorate from there.

After that there was time for the consultants to have a cocktail and network with each other. While they were doing that, I was in the rest room, nauseated and thinking of ways to get out of the evening presentation that I was to make following dinner.

I thought if I ran away, I would have trouble making future presentations in the business world (I was three years into venturing into that arena from a full time clinical psychotherapy practice). I spoke with Ward about this and he brainstormed with me about scrapping my prepared evening talk and instead facilitating an entirely interactive discussion where people would share stories of “not being paid what they were worth as a consultant” and then others would share how they had solved a similar situation. And of course Ward volunteered to go first with a humble tale of being stiffed by a client. I have always thought he made it up for my benefit, just to direct the subsequent conversation in just the direction it needed to go.

And the result? After one of the worst presentations this group had seen in the afternoon, they actually stayed later for the evening presentation than they had ever stayed. Several came up to me to thank me for the best presentation they had ever seen in this organization.

That was quintessential Ward.

Ward has continued to support me through my career as he has done for many others. More recently he has been the heart and soul and leader of a Trusted Advisor Network (which we refer to as the TAN group) and even more recently (three weeks before he died) he brought me in as the main outside speaker to an Annual Sales Meeting of Navco, a company that he had recently become the CEO of and that he had quickly helped become even more successful than it had been.

Ward recently served as CEO of Navco and was the Founder & owner of Management Overload. He achieved international distinction as a management consultant related to his successes with rapid business growth and turnarounds. Prior to management consulting, Ward enjoyed twelve years of progressively responsible executive positions in three Fortune 100 companies, achieving high executive posts in two of these companies. He also served as an advisor to President Carter at the White House on Zero Base Budgeting and productivity measurement.

Ward started his consulting career in 1975 with Peat Marwick Mitchell & Co . After three years of managing up to 84 consultants, in 1978, he started his own consulting practice. Ward has served as acting CEO, COO and GM for several clients. His clients include a broad spectrum of businesses from aerospace to food service. His accomplishments range from divestiture of a $125,000 dance studio to winning a $125,000,000 contract dispute award for a shipbuilder. Ward also functions as a board member to several corporations.

In 1972, he accepted responsibility for corporate financial functions reporting to the Chairman of the Board and CEO of Rohr Industries. His responsibilities included acquisitions, mergers and divestitures relating to joint ventures, subsidiaries and vendors. He achieved industry notoriety by quantitatively relating disruption of production operations to the resulting costs. This discovery led to multimillion dollar claims awards and commencement of Ward’s consulting career.

In 1966, Ward joined Texas Instruments to create and manage their Program Management department. From 1966 to 1972, he advanced through line and staff management positions culminating in responsibility for corporate planning activities. This position reported to the president.

In 1963, he started his career with Eastman Kodak as an Industrial Engineer and was able to enter the ranks of engineering management over the next three years.

Ward held a Master of Science Degree in Industrial Engineering from the University of Missouri. He taught undergraduate engineering subjects at Missouri University and earned distinction as a Registered Professional Engineer. More recently, Ward appeared on several TV shows and international radio. He was featured in numerous newspaper articles, magazine articles and three books. He was a sought after speaker on the subjects of Rapid Business Growth, Turnarounds and Negotiating.

I hope Ward knew how grateful so many of us were to him. And for those of us who wonder if we let him know sufficiently about how we felt about him, I am certain he is in Heaven replying with his gentle, caring smile, “Yes I knew, now go on and have a great life.”

A final note, because Ward would not be pleased if he caused us to feel so sad.  He would prefer to put a smile on our face as much in death as he did in life.  To that end, I am reminded of the description of “A Good Death” that Dr. Henry A. Murray passed on to another dear friend and mentor of mine, Dr. Edwin Shneidman. As Murray defined it: “It’s dying so as to be as little a pain in the ass to your family and friends as possible.”

If that is the case, Ward had indeed “a good death,” but more than that, he had a great life.  And for those of us who were privileged to know him and be known by him, our lives were made great by his presence.

Who are you grateful to? Have you let them know? Shouldn’t you?

1. A learned person does not begin speaking before one who is greater than they in wisdom or in years;
2. they do not interrupt the words of their fellow;
3. they do not answer in a hurry;
4. they question with relevance to the subject and they reply accurately;
5. they discuss first things first and last things last;
6. about something they have not heard they say, ‘I have not heard’;
7. they acknowledge the truth.

The reverse of these characteristics is found in a golem.”

Talmud, Ethics of the Fathers, Chapter 5

Special thanks to Rabbi Nachum Braverman, Executive Director, Jerusalem Partners of Los Angeles, for sharing this.

I think, at least I hope, I am not a golem, but I do think I am much smarter than I am learned.  How about you?

for-give-ness: Pronunciation: \-ˈgiv-nəs\ – noun – The act of letting go of one’s anger towards someone for having hurt, wounded, betrayed, injured or harmed one. Forgiving does not necessarily mean forgetting the harm someone has done, your disappointment in them or giving them a second chance to harm you, but it does mean letting go of the anger one attaches to the hurtful incident and of begrudging the person for it.

With Tiger Woods’ apology, forgiveness is in the air.  But until it is also in people’s actions it is just words.

One of my favorite and most revealing openings in my talks, that I owe to Dave Hibbard, Founder and CEO of Dialexis who learned it from Caroline Myss author of, Defy Gravity: Healing Beyond the Bounds of Reason (Hay House, $24.95), is to ask: “If I could give you the secret to happiness and peace of mind in one word, would you want to know what it is?”

Even to skeptical groups, most people are intrigued enough to reply, “Yes.”

“If you don’t agree with it, you can summarily reject it; but if you do agree with it, do you promise to embrace it and put it into action in your life?” I continue.

Since they are given a way out and since this seems like a logical request, this often triggers a, “Yes” from the group.

I then take out a piece of paper, write a word on it, fold up the piece of paper and hand it to someone in the group.  The message is then handed from one person to the next.

One by one the majority of the group will read the word, pause, take a deep breath and give out a big sigh of agreement.

The word is, “Forgiveness.”

The exercise does not stop there.

I ask them next:

1. “With a show of hands, how many of you when you read the word, ‘forgiveness,’ rejected it?”
2. “How many of you immediately thought of people you needed to forgive?”
3. “How many of you immediately thought of people you need to ask forgiveness from?”
4. “How many of you thought a combination of forgiving people and asking forgiveness from them?”
5. “How many of you thought more about forgiving than asking forgiveness?”
6. “How many of you thought more about asking forgiveness than forgiving others?”

I then explain to them:

1. If you rejected the word, you are most likely a “dyed in the wool” narcissist, because you feel entitled to hold onto negative feelings towards anyone you choose to and you are very poor relationship material.  You shouldn’t be in a relationship and I would advise others to not be in a relationship with you.
2. If you thought either exclusively or more about people you needed to forgive than to ask forgiveness from, you are most likely someone that has narcissistic features and feels entitled.  You can be in a relationship, but you are high maintenance. I would advise people to try a relationship with you, but to be on the look out for getting burned out being with you at which point they need to stop deluding themselves that you’ll change and just get out.
3. If you thought more about asking forgiveness than being forgiving, you are not narcissistic, are willing to take responsibility for your actions that hurt others.  You are low maintenance and the best relationship material.  I would advise others to be in a relationship with you.

Where are you when it comes to forgiveness?  If you want to improve your relationships share this blog with your partner, children, parents, siblings and friends and ask them where on the continuum of “Unforgiving to Forgiving” they see you.  If they see you as being more unforgiving than forgiving, ask them the effect it has had on them regarding being in a relationship with you. If they see you as more unforgiving than forgiving, stop it.

If you are so unforgiving and don’t care about any of this, realize that there is another word that is synonymous when you get to the end of your life.  That word is “bitter.”

Improve your relationship today with these tried-and-true tips

By Mark Goulston from Divorce360.com

Photo: © Comstock

What does it take to be happy in a relationship? If you’re working to improve your marriage, here are the 10 habits of happy couples.

1. Go to bed at the same time
Remember the beginning of your relationship, when you couldn’t wait to go to bed with each other to make love? Happy couples resist the temptation to go to bed at different times. They go to bed at the same time, even if one partner wakes up later to do things while their partner sleeps.

2. Cultivate common interests
After the passion settles down, it’s common to realize that you have few interests in common. But don’t minimize the importance of activities you can do together that you both enjoy. If common interests are not present, happy couples develop them. At the same time, be sure to cultivate interests of your own; this will make you more interesting to your mate and prevent you from appearing too dependent.

3. Walk hand in hand or side by side
Rather than one partner lagging or dragging behind the other, happy couples walk comfortably hand in hand or side by side. They know it’s more important to be with their partner than to see the sights along the way.

4. Make trust and forgiveness your default mode
If and when they have a disagreement or argument, and if they can’t resolve it, happy couples default to trusting and forgiving rather than distrusting and begrudging.

5. Focus more on what your partner does right than what he or she does wrong
If you look for things your partner does wrong, you can always find something. If you look for what he or she does right, you can always find something, too. It all depends on what you want to look for. Happy couples accentuate the positive.

6. Hug each other as soon as you see each other after work
Our skin has a memory of “good touch” (loved), “bad touch” (abused) and “no touch” (neglected). Couples who say hello with a hug keep their skin bathed in the “good touch,” which can inoculate your spirit against anonymity in the world.

7. Say “I love you” and “Have a good day” every morning
This is a great way to buy some patience and tolerance as each partner sets out each day to battle traffic jams, long lines and other annoyances.

8. Say “Good night” every night, regardless of how you feel
This tells your partner that, regardless of how upset you are with him or her, you still want to be in the relationship. It says that what you and your partner have is bigger than any single upsetting incident.

9. Do a “weather” check during the day
Call your partner at home or at work to see how his or her day is going. This is a great way to adjust expectations so that you’re more in sync when you connect after work. For instance, if your partner is having an awful day, it might be unreasonable to expect him or her to be enthusiastic about something good that happened to you.

10. Be proud to be seen with your partner
Happy couples are pleased to be seen together and are often in some kind of affectionate contact — hand on hand or hand on shoulder or knee or back of neck. They are not showing off but rather just saying that they belong with each other.

Happy couples have different habits than unhappy couples. A habit is a discrete behavior that you do automatically and that takes little effort to maintain. It takes 21 days of daily repetition of a new a behavior to become a habit. So select one of the behaviors in the list above to do for 21 days and voila, it will become a habit…and make you happier as a couple. And if you fall off the wagon, don’t despair, just apologize to your partner, ask their forgiveness and recommit yourself to getting back in the habit.

Discover The 6 Secrets of a Lasting Relationship: How to Fall in Love Again… and Stay There (Perigee, $14.95)

Do you like to snuggle up to your honey under the covers, or are you the type who needs your space? Your behavior in bed may be trying to tell you something important about the health of your relationship.

“The way partners share a bed says a huge amount how much they really like each other, trust and feel safe with each other,” says Dr. Mark Goulston, Chief Relationship Officer at Happier Couples. “Analyzing sleep positions can highlight trouble spots they may not even be aware of.”

Recognizing what these unconscious signs indicate can help couples iron out problems before they reach a crisis, Goulston adds.

1. The Spoon.
One partner cuddled up to the back of the other is the most common position in the first few years of a relationship. It implies physical trust and a feeling of complete emotional safety. “For many couples the Spoon is a comforting cocoon,” says Baltimore psychologist and marital therapist Shirley Glass.

2. The Lovers Hug.
Typically the man is on his back with his arm around his partner and her head on his shoulder. Utter contentment is the hallmark here. “You’re literally being brought in under the wing,” Glass says. “It’s a very nurturing position.”

3. The Hooked Leg.
Casually touching your partner with your foot or leg indicates a healthy camaraderie. “They are showing a need for closeness as well as a desire to maintain individuality,” Goulston says.

4. Back to Back.
Faced away from each other with only your buttocks touching allows a private connection without clinging. “Like two circles, separate but overlapping, this position is a perfect definition of interdependence,” Glass contends.

5. The Pursuit.
If your partner moves to the far side of the bed and you pursue, it’s not necessarily a bad sign. “The partner who distances may actually want to be pursued,” says Glass. “It’s a test.”

6. Opposite Sides.
If there’s an ocean of sheet between you, closeness is fading and stress is building between you. “They’re avoiding a lot of issues and don’t trust each other,” says Goulston. “They are probably thinking, ‘What am I doing here?’”

7. Baby on Board .
If one partner continually brings the kid to bed, he or she may be expressing a fear of intimacy. Erecting this barrier is a way to prevent meaningful discussion of important issues. They must talk about why they feel this and work towards feeling comfortable,” Goulston advises.

8. Fido Invasion.
If your mate plops your pet between you in bed every night, it’s time to sit down and have a little talk. “He or she needs more affection, fears rejection and wants to put a barrier between themselves and a partner,” Goulston explains.

Recognizing what these unconscious signs indicate can help couples iron out problems before they reach a crisis, Goulston adds.

Check out Dr. Goulston’s seminal book, The 6 Secrets of a Lasting Relationship: How to Fall in Love Again…and Stay There (Perigee, 2002) and discover what may be going on in your minds when you’re under the covers.

This was told to me by a very wise woman who discovered this with her first husband.  He agreed and not only did they amicably divorce they have remained very good friends and successful business partners.  And because of the cooperation, mutual respect and not making each other wrong, their child has thrived much more than kids from many conflict ravaged, in tact marriages.

The trouble arises when one or the other or both partners requires the other person to grow in the same direction in order to remain psychologically stable.  The people who have the most difficulty and create the most havoc in allowing the other person to become a different person are often what we refer to as being Narcissists* or having Borderline Personalities**.  Narcissists are driven by a need to psychologically dominate others to serve their ego; people with Borderline Personalities are driven by a need to control others to serve their own psychological survival. When either of these types of people sense their partner is not conforming to their psychological needs, they become enraged.  The rage of Narcissists is a reaction to the other person having the impudence to not do want the narcissist wants.  The rage of people with Borderline Personalities comes from the terror that they will fragment if the other person either controls or threatens to abandon them.

Should you remain in a marriage if the two of you have grown apart?  Each case is different and comes down to what in the long run you are getting and what you’re not by being with someone who is not doing anything wrong, but is just being true to themselves.

One way to not only survive but thrive in a marriage in which each of you grow into different personalities is if you share core values to which your commitment can override personality incompatibility.  If for instance your love, devotion and commitment to God or family in your actions vs. words is much more important than getting your way, there is more than enough room to live happily ever after regardless of who each of you grow up to be.

What do you think?

* To learn more about Narcissists check out: Freeing Yourself from the Narcissist in Your Life by Linda Martinez-Lewi.
** To learn more about Borderline Personalities check out: “I Hate You, Don’t Leave Me: Understanding the Borderline Personality by Jerold Kreisman.

Wealth is what you take from the world,
worth is what you give back.
- Mark Goulston as told to Eli Broad

Act 1: For a piece of the action, do deals that close

• the market is huge and filled with people who will be eager to spend money on your service or product
• the service or product is sufficiently disruptive to generate market excitement, a.k.a. where Your “What” = Their “Wow”
• all the numbers make sense and the barriers to entry because of design, execution and a big head start are huge (think Apple)

Act 2: For peace of mind, do deals that last

• company is always working to improve the quality of its services and products and continuing to delight its market (again, think Apple)
• ability to correct and change course (not to be confused with flip flopping) according to market reality, a.k.a. denial and delusion are not parts of the culture
• leadership, leadership, leadership
• management, management, management

Act 3: For peace on Earth, do deals that matter

• fulfilling a vision of a future that wasn’t going to happen without this service or product that all stakeholders — client, customers, employees, shareholders — will want to be and remain a part of
• a service or product that fulfills a vision where all stakeholders are proud to be part of that company and that being connected to it will be one of the best uses of their money and time ever in their lives
• a service or product that leaves the world much better than it found it

If this “Play” speaks to you and you want to get your company’s “Act” together, contact Peter Winick to find out about Dr. Goulston’s speaking, coaching, training and consulting services.

Not getting the results, happiness or long term satisfaction in your career, relationships and life?  Maybe you’re just immature.

How mature are you or someone you know?

The Maturity Index (TMI)

(Rate the following statements about yourself or your spouse or your grown children or your employees: 1 = rarely; 2 = sometimes; 3 = nearly always)

Thinking

1. I pause before I speak
2. I consider the consequences of my actions before I act
3. I weigh the pluses and minuses of decisions before I make them

Planning

1. I come up with long term goals
2. I develop a plan for reaching those goals
3. I develop a plan for dealing with potential derailers from staying on track to those long term goals

Accepting Consequences

1. I believe the results that I see
2. I accept non-begrudgingly the consequences of my decisions and actions rather than rejecting them
3. I agree to deal with the consequences of my decisions and actions rather than fight them

Being Accountable

1. I accept it is my responsibility to deal with the consequences of my decisions and actions
2. I commit to actions to deal with the consequences of my decisions and actions
3. I commit to a schedule for taking those actions and agree to further consequences of not following through on them by the agreed time

Scoring:

12 – 19: You’re highly immature - it’s nearly impossible for you to delay gratification and is impossible for you to willingly and calmly accept full responsibility for the consequences of your impulsive decisions. You tend to be a hostile, belligerent blamer and grudge holder.  If left unchecked, you run the risk of feeling bitter at the end of your life.
20– 27: You’re immature – you can occasionally delay gratification and although you’re not happy about the negative consequences of your hasty actions, you don’t go ballistic. You’re not as hostile in your blaming, but you have a sizable unforgiving streak in your personality.  At the end of your life, you run the risk of feeling depressed and unfulfilled.
28 – 36: You’re mature – your decisions are more guided by your core values which extend beyond your personal needs and wants to others and when things don’t work out, you’re disappointed, but you rarely blame others (even if they are at fault) and instead focus on fixing problems that arise, correcting your course and moving forward.  You are the kind of person that people feel honored and privileged to know.  At the end of your life, you have the possibility of feeling satisfied, fulfilled and of being respected, admired, appreciated and beloved as my mentor Warren Bennis is (and, “Yes,” I do know how lucky I am to have him as my mentor).

(c) 2010 Mark Goulston

If this test speaks to you or someone you care about or work with and you want to finally grow up so that you can achieve the long term success, happiness and peace of mind that mature people appear to have that immature ones don’t, contact Peter Winick to find out about Dr. Goulston’s talks, coaching and training programs.

A good first step is to check out Dr. Mark’s Amazon.com #1 best selling book, “Just Listen.” Why?  Because mature people listen much more than they talk.

“You look like hell and I don’t think it’s because you’re dying; you’ve been dying as long as I’ve known you,” I said to Max (real name withheld) the terminally ill tough movie mogul I’d been doing house calls on and with whom I had developed a no b.s. rapport.

“I don’t think I’ve ever done anything important in my life,” he told me.

“What?” I protested, trying to ease his mind as he closed in on the end of his life.  “Think of the hospital wing named after you, the jobs you created, the amazing films that will live on forever.”

“Don’t con a con man, especially when he’s dying,” he snapped back.  “I have all the love that money can buy and that’s all it’s worth.   I also have several ex-partners and two ex-wives I beat up on financially and a bunch of trust fund kids from three marriages, who I guess I love, but who are all selfish and irresponsible.”

“So if I continued the list of all your achievements, it wouldn’t work,” I asked.

“No, not now.  I think I just might have outsmarted myself,” Max concluded.

Now having trained FBI and police hostage negotiators and appeared on CNN and national radio stations on the day of the Columbine shootings and again on 9/11 to take calls, I am pretty quick on my feet.

“Really,” I said. “You know there are a couple of very uncomplimentary words in psychology that I’ve been thinking that might apply to you, but I didn’t think I’d get to use them given that you’re dying.  Those words are narcissist and psychopath.  And you know, you might just be getting exactly what you deserve.  You did use people for most of your life and took pleasure in doing it. You were a master manipulator.  In fact you made Citizen Kane look like a boy scout. And another thing,” I stopped when he abruptly interrupted me.

“Stop already! Okay! I get it.  You’ve made your point,” he said emphatically.

“And that point is?” I asked.

“This is not a good time for me to be asking these questions,” he said with a broad smile that indicated our rapport was still in tact despite my verbal assault.

“CORRECT! You weren’t perfect, but neither were you the most evil person on earth.  You messed up, but you did a lot of good.  Drop it already. Let’s go for pain control, morphine drip and then get out of Dodge,” I urged.

“Do I get to go out with my boots on?” Max quipped.

“Sure, it’s your movie,” I couldn’t resist having the last word.

Three weeks later Max died…with his slippers on.

Why is it that so many high achievers stink at relationships? High achievers are good at clearly selecting a goal and tenaciously staying on track until they achieve it and scattering anything that might derail them.  Other people’s feelings or being mindful of their own lack of tack (which taken together we refer to as Emotional Intelligence) would distract them.  Most high achievers are not insensitive, they are simply NOT sensitive.

To be good at a relationship, you need to listen to the other person, care enough to make the effort to understand what they are saying (i.e. “relate” to it) and then communicate back to them in a way that demonstrates you have taken into consideration what you have understood.  Not only is that off putting to a high achiever, but the “run on sentence” I just used to explain it was more than they could even pay attention to.