1. Tell other people — The single greatest tip for keeping a New Year’s Resolution according to David Ackert, President of The Ackert Advisory a business development firm in Los Angeles is telling the person(s) you most respect, whose esteem is most important to you and who you would least want to feel disappointed in you.  In fact, the more you resist selecting such people, the less your commitment to your resolutions.
2. Be realistic — Don’t confuse reasonable expectations with realistic expectations. Reasonable means “makes sense.” Realistic means “likely to happen.” It may be reasonable to stop procrastinating, improve your time management, confront people you need to confront, not to mention start a new diet and begin exercising, but it may not be realistic to change all of them at once.
3. Set specific goals – Seek the input of others goals for you to accomplish that will best set you up to succeed in your job and career. Ask them what they feel you are truly excellent at and what would be a goal that would best utilize the special skill. One of the greatest benefits about coming from a place that you are excellent at is that it is where you have the most confidence and where you least have to embellish or b.s. anyone.
4. Have a plan — Most people have a clearer idea of how they want to feel (as in happier, healthier, richer) than they have a clear picture of what things need to be done to get there. You know the saying, “Where there’s a will, there’s a way.” The reverse is more often true, i.e. “Where there’s a way, there’s a will.” Have a step-by-step plan for how to achieve your goals. The more specific and more you can visualize the steps the greater chance of your following through.
5. Write it down — You wouldn’t build a house without a blueprint, would you? Write down what you need to stop doing and what you need to start doing to reach your goals. Writing down your goals and plans increases your commitment.
6. Use the buddy system — Partner with someone who is also trying to keep their New Year’s resolutions to increase your dedication. Stopping negative habits and replacing them with positive behavior is easier when you have a buddy system with a good friend or co-worker. Doing New Year’s Resolutions with another person reduces the pain of doing without that unhealthy habit you’re trying to break.
7. Eliminate energy vampires — One reason you fall off commitments that require sustained effort that you need a quick fix every time you deal with negative people or no-win situations. These can be so exhausting that you say “the heck with” your diet or exercise and grab a candy bar or bail on exercising. Find a way to reduce contact with these people and situations and you’ll dramatically increase your energy and be able to stay on track.
8. Stick with it — A couple years ago I attended a training by terrific people from Simple Team Solutions (www.simpleteamsolutions.com), a company founded by Greg Wingard, creator and author of The Red Bucket Strategy. Their program achieves phenomenal measurable results by having people select an important goal and then doing something specific for 10-15 minutes max daily for 90 days to achieve it. They believe that this is the time for a new behavior that takes a lot of energy to keep up into an internalized one that you automatically do and is nearly effortless. I was so impressed with them that I will focus an entire column on their work in the near future.

Usable Insight: Follow through means never having to say you’re sorry

Not getting the results, happiness or long term satisfaction in your career, relationships and life or from your employees?  Maybe you and they are just immature.

How mature are you or someone you know?

California Maturity Index (CMI) ™*

(Rate the following statements about one of your employees or yourself: 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

4. I come up with long term goals
5. I develop a plan for reaching those goals
6. I develop a plan for dealing with potential derailers from staying on track to those long term goals

Accepting Consequences

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

Being Accountable

10. I accept it is my responsibility to deal with the consequences of my decisions and actions
11. I commit to actions to deal with the consequences of my decisions and actions
12. 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.

If you really want to help your company and the people in it grow up and perform better, use the CMI with your employees in their next performance review by having people rate themselves and then rate you on it.  After they do that, ask them to rate themselves the way they believe you would rate them. Follow that with asking them why they gave those ratings in those three categories.  Then ask them what they believe the relationship was between their rating and a) their performance; b) their compensation; c) the respect, trust and confidence that others have in them. Finally, have a dialogue with them about what specific behavioral changes they would need to do to improve their ratings and then tell them that you and they will revisit those commitments informally every month to see how they are coming along and then formally in their next performance review.

*The CMI™ was created by Mark Goulston and Doc Barham of Xtraordinary Outcomes and was called such because both Mark and Doc live in California and as a state it seems to take pride in being immature.

Right now, in the time it takes for you to read this, a teenager in your town or city wishes she were dead. A teenager in your state is thinking of a way to kill himself. Perhaps he’ll use a gun or a rope or pills or his car or simply go out for a swim from which he won’t return. A teenager in this country has just reached for that gun or is stepping up on that chair and placing his head through the noose of that rope. Or she’s counting out enough pills to finish the job or starting to slice into her wrist and watch the little beads of blood seep to the surface, harbingers of the hemorrhage that will start when she deftly severs her radial artery.

And somewhere out there in the global community to which we all belong, a teenager has just ended his life as the culmination to his absolute, unshakable belief that he belonged nowhere.

Although the suffering of that teenager is over, it has not yet begun for her family. When that teenager’s mother and father make the awful discovery that awaits them, life as they know it will be over. After this moment, if you ever look directly into the eyes of that mother or father, you will see how much of their own lives has been ripped out of them with the suicide of their child. You won’t know what to say and you will find it too painful to keep looking. You’ll look away, hoping that such a horror never befalls you; but somewhere inside you are thinking that there but for the grace of God, goes your teenager and you.

Many of our teens are in danger of falling through the cracks of a “too busy to care” world. If you’re worried that your child has something dark and troublesome on his mind, he probably does. If you’re too busy to take the time to break through to your child, make the time. If your child pushes you away, remember you don’t need his permission to protect him from anything that could hurt him or his future.

In fact it’s your most important job as a parent. If you don’t know how to communicate with your defiant teen, learn to. If you’re that teen who is having despairing thoughts and the following letter and poem relate to you, send it! If you’re a parent worrying about what’s going on inside your teen and you think the letter and poem may relate to him or her, give it to them and ask. Then put everything else aside and take the time to listen to and talk with your teenager.

Dear Mom and Dad,

I’m writing you this letter, because I’m afraid if I tell you how unhappy I am, you’ll become angry or frightened, or even worse, you’ll tell me I’m just trying to make excuses or trying to get attention. Then I’ll have to take it back and reassure you that it’s nothing and I’m okay— when I’m really not. I really don’t know what’s wrong, and I know I don’t deserve to feel as bad as I do because other people have it much worse. But I can’t help it, I do feel as bad as I do. I feel very alone and that nobody in the world knows me— and I’m so confused, that I couldn’t even tell anyone what I want them to know about me. Read this enclosed poem and it might help you to know how I’m feeling. I’m really sorry if I’m a big disappointment to you. Please don’t be angry at me for being so ashamed of me. Can you please help me?

Love,

REACHING OUT FOR HELP

Don’t be fooled by me.
Don’t be fooled by the face I wear.
For I wear a thousand masks, masks that I’m afraid to take off.
And none of them are me.
Pretending is an art that’s second nature to me.
But don’t be fooled, for God’s sake, don’t be fooled.
I give the impression that I’m secure,
That all is sunny and unruffled with me,
Within as well as without,
That confidence is my name and coolness my game,
That the water’s calm and I’m in command,
And that I need no one.
But don’t believe me, please.
My surface may seem smooth, but my surface is my mask.
Beneath this lies no complacence.
Beneath dwells the real me in confusion, in fear, and aloneness.
But I hide this. I don’t want anybody to know it.
I panic at the thought of my weakness and fear of being exposed.
That’s why I frantically create a mask to hide behind,
A nonchalant, sophisticated façade,
To help me pretend, to shield me from the glance that knows.
But such a glance is precisely my salvation. My only salvation.
And I know it.
That is if it’s followed by acceptance, if it’s followed by love.
It’s the only think that will assure me of what I can’t assure myself…
That I am worth something.
But I don’t dare tell you this. I don’t dare. I’m afraid to.
I’m afraid your glance will not be followed by acceptance and love.
I’m afraid you’ll think less of me, that you’ll laugh at me,
And your laugh would kill me.
I’m afraid that deep down I’m nothing, that I’m no good.
And that you will see this and reject me.
So I play my game. My desperate game.
With a façade of assurance without and a trembling child within.
And so begins the parade of masks. And my life becomes a front.
I idly chatter to you in the suave tones of surface talk.
I tell you everything that is really nothing.
And nothing of what’s everything,
Of what’s crying within me.
So when I’m going through my routine, do not be fooled by what I’m saying.
What I’d like to be able to say,
What for survival I need to say, but what I can’t say,
I dislike hiding, honestly.
I dislike the superficial game I’m playing, the phony game.
I’d really like to be genuine and spontaneous and me.
But you’ve got to help me. You’ve got to hold out your hand,
Even when that’s the last thing I seem to want.
Only you can wipe away from my eyes the blank stare of breathing death,
Only you can call me into aliveness.
Each time you’re kind and gentle and encouraging.
Each time you try to understand because you really care,
My heart begins to grow wings, very small wings, very feeble wings,
But wings.
With your sensitivity and sympathy, and your power of understanding
You can breath life into me, I want you to know that.
I want you to know how important you are to me.
How you can be the creator of the person that is me, if you choose to.
Please choose to.
You alone can break down the wall behind which I tremble.
You alone can remove my mask.
You alone can release me from my shaking world of panic and uncertainty.
Please…do not pass me by.
It will not be easy for you.
A long conviction of worthlessness builds strong walls.
The nearer you approach me, the blinder I strike back.
I fight against the very thing I cry out for.
But I am told that love is stronger than walls,
And in that lies my hope.
Please try to beat down those walls with firm hands,
But with gentle hands…for a child is sensitive…
Who am I, you may wonder. I am someone you know very well.
For I am every man you meet and I am every woman you meet.
I am you and I am me.
- Charles C. Finn

To Think About:

• Trying to understand your teenager is more important than what you understand. One of the most exasperating experiences for any teenager is dealing with someone who instead of trying to understand, acts as if they already know. You accomplish trying to understand by keeping your teenager talking and expressing his or her thoughts and by asking questions like: what happened next, what did you feel when that happened, what did you do when that happened, and what did you think when all that happened. Keep asking these questions and alternate the order so you might talk about feelings first, thoughts second, actions third and then changing the order. Don’t worry about arriving at the correct solution. The more your teenager is able to express his thoughts, feelings, and actions into your undivided attention, the more he’ll feel known and felt, the less he’ll feel alone, and the less his despair will be.
• Teenagers have a great sense of despair about how angry they feel towards their parents. They’re so furious with their parents, but still are so dependent upon them that they don’t know what to do with their destructive thoughts other than direct them back at themselves. Helping them to talk about this conflict with you (and not becoming defensive when they vent their hostility at you) will lessen the pain it inflicts on both them and you. As awful as it might be to have them aim their anger at you, it’s much better than having them aim it at themselves.

(c) 2010 Mark Goulston

Reaching Out for Help (click to download PDF of letter and poem)

The Road Back from Hell: A Breakthrough Moment for Us Both

About Teenage Violence: It’s the Rage

Not surprisingly, we are all discovering more and more about what went on in Jared Loughner’s life and trying to piece together what went on in his mind that may have pushed him to commit the shootings that killed 6 and wounded 13 on January 8 in Tucson.

I remember Peter Finch’s role in the movie Network where he screamed out at the world, “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore!” In that movie however, rather than being shunned and ostracized for his ranting, he was embraced and started a movement that both characters in the movie and audiences embraced, the latter so much that Finch posthumously won a Best Actor Oscar for his performance.

From what we are learning about Jared Loughner’s life and his mind, it appears that he too, was mad as hell and not going to take it any more.

Understanding what the “mad as hell” and “not going to take it anymore” was about may not only offer keys to figuring Loughner out and the actions he took on that fateful day, but also offer steps to intervening in the Jared Loughners in the world who haven’t yet reached the “not going to take it anymore” stage.

“Mad as hell!”

In Loughner’s case it was possible that after experiencing so much rejection, he descended from “anybody” to “nobody” to “shunned (fueled more by fear he triggered in others) nobody.” Over time when you’re a nobody and don’t know how to make it back into the world, much less get ahead in it, you increasingly feel powerless until you reach the point of feeling impotent. Feeling impotent (literally and figuratively) is one of the worst experiences possible for any man. Add to that experience feeling shunned (and in your mind the equivalent of being laughed at) and it’s easy to understand your feeling of impotence crossing over into impotent rage.

“Not going to take it anymore!”

When impotence crosses over into impotent rage, that is where a dangerous tipping point is reached and the slippery slope from feelings to rageful actions begins. Taking any action is empowering. Rageful action feels more empowering and then the possibility of terrifying people feels even more empowering than than.

Seven Steps to Defusing a Human Time Bomb

The following progression is the ticking of many human time bombs: Unheard + Not Understood + Rejected + Shunned –> Nobody + Unimportant –> “I’ll show you and I’ll show the world how important I am.” They also reveal the following steps and that can calm an agitated person down in a single conversation.

1. The rant. This is when the person in question is verbally ranting or even communicating by email, on youtube, on facebook, etc.
2. Engaging the ranter. After you have heard or seen or read their rant, say or write to them: “What you’re saying is much too important (implying that something about this person is important often strikes at the core of their rage and immediately lessens it) for me to not understand exactly what you’re trying to communicate, so could you please tell me what exactly happened to lead you to what you’re saying right now?”
3. Ranter slows down and repeats what they are saying. Now that they have your full, undivided, interested and what appears to be respectful attention there is even less reason to be so angry, because they are no longer as impotent in getting the attention of someone in the world.
4. “Tell me more.” At the moment when they pause after providing the explanation in 3 above, they are anticipating that you will either tell them they are wrong, be dismissive, take issue with them, look at them like they are crazy or have some other negative response. The last thing they expect and what they need most is for you to continue to be interested in what they are saying. Saying to them: “I understand. Tell me more” communicates, “I’m still listening,” “I’m not offended,” “You’re making sense (even if that isn’t so, they are making sense to themselves in that they believe what they are saying). This further calms them down.
5. “Give me a specific example.” After they have finished what they have to say in 4, asking them to give you a specific example and to be specific will cause them to re-experience underlying feelings such as deep frustration, hurt and fear that when left unabated led to the rage at the surface.
6. “And the way that makes you feel right now is frustrated, angry, at your wit’s end, disgusted or exactly what?” According to UCLA researcher Matthew Lieberman when you offer them some feeling words that they can agree with and then having them say the word itself, you significantly lower amgydala activation. The amygdala is in our middle brain and when it becomes overly activated it produces what is referred to as an amygdala hijack which pulls us away from engaging our prefrontal cortex and away from using or listening to reason.
7. “And that is why we (again taking away their experience of being alone) really need to either fix this or figure something out soon, because you can’t take this much longer. Isn’t that true?” At this stage much of the agitation will have been dissipated and they may feel connected enough to you (as if you have become more like a caring big brother or big sister instead of an authority figure) to engage in a collaborative conversation with you. In that kind of relationship with them, you can hear their giving you one crazy solution after another and you can say empathetically and in a big brother or big sister like voice, “You know, if I was you, I would feel exactly the same way and I think I would want others to do exactly what you’re saying or I would be tempted to do exactly what you’re saying, but honestly I don’t think it will fly and will probably backfire. Let’s keep thinking of other things we can try that might work so you can get out of this lousy situation.”

In essence the seven steps transforms the conversation from their talking at or over you to their talking to you to your talking with them.

If the above speaks to you, and you want to learn more, please check out my book, “Just Listen” Discover the Secret to Getting Through to Absolutely Anyone (Amacom, $24.95). I wanted to call it, “Just Care” because that is closer to the modus operandi of the book, but settled on “Just Listen” because “caring” just seemed too far out of reach for so many people who are just too busy in their lives to take the time that caring takes.

Suicide Warning Signs:

Here are key suicide warning signs to watch out for, according to the VA:

• Talking about wanting to hurt or kill oneself
• Trying to get pills, guns, or other ways to harm oneself
• Talking or writing about death, dying or suicide
• Hopelessness
• Rage, uncontrolled anger, seeking revenge
• Acting in a reckless or risky way
• Feeling trapped, like there is no way out
• Saying or feeling there’s no reason for living

(AP) Military medical researchers say their efforts to reverse the rising number of suicides among service members are based on “good ideas,” but they don’t know which prevention programs work and which don’t. They launched a $17 million study Wednesday to find out.

None of the current training programs is evidence-based, said Army Col. Carl Castro, director of the Military Operational Medicine Research Program at Fort Detrick, Maryland.

“It’s good ideas — experts think that this is what we need to do — but we do not have any evidence that that training actually in fact prevents suicide,” he said.

I am not a researcher, nor is my work in suicide evidence based, however in the early part of my psychiatric practice I was one of the main psychiatrists that my mentor, Dr. Edwin Shneidman, referred still suicidal, but needing to be discharged, patients from the In Patient Units from what was then UCLA’s Neuropsychiatric Institute (and now The Resnick Neuropsychiatric Hospital).   For 12 years I gave a presentation, “I’m going to kill myself!,” to his UCLA upper division undergraduate class, “Death and Suicide” class. Dr. Shneidman told me that I was always either the top or second to the top rated presentation.

At one time 25 % of my practice were still suicidal patients and I rarely if ever hospitalized them and none of killed themselves (I did hear of one who did years after I was treating him).  My wife still jokes that for ten years I never made it through a movie without being beeped.

I have done some training for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention when I served on its board and have trained FBI and police in hostage negotiation, suicide by cop and intervening with suicidal police officers.

My challenge is that I am an “outlier” and don’t do well with bureaucracies, so I have turned to other areas where I can be of more help to more people by working with leaders such as executive coaching, leadership training and team building.

However, I did revisit my interest in suicide intervention and treatment of survivors when I wrote PTSD for Dummies and my interest in this area has come back as a result of joining Steele Partners as Vice Chairman along with our Chairman and Founder, Lt. General Marty Steele (USMC ret) and CEO, Colonel Tom Tyrrell (USMC ret).  We had a very successful privately funded Military Civilian Transition Program from 2006-2008 that 500 Marines went through that we have refined and are looking for funding for.

But back to the problem and challenge at hand of soldier and veteran suicide.  What follows is my non-evidence, but experience based “outlier” understanding of the issue and what I believe effective approaches will need to have.

As you can read from “A Breakthrough Moment for Both of Us,” where I essentially went inside the experience of a non-communicative suicidal patient and “Living Through Wanting to Die” where I “got into the listening” of a suicidal athlete and his family, the following is what I think contributes greatly to the increased suicidality of soldiers from “their” inside out.

New recruits come to the Marines, Army and to a lesser but still important extent Navy, Air Force and Coast Guard often with a loosey goosey mindset, a mixed bag of skillsets, often many bad habits that have landed them in trouble and some idea of wanting to become a hero or become all that they can be, or be amongst the few and the proud.

During basic training recruits are taken from an essentially old rickety Ford jalopy, broken down in boot camp, rebuilt and turned into a Porsche.  Along the way of becoming that Porsche they become part of a squadron and mission that overflows with honor, can do empowerment and where they feel purposeful and part of an elite group for the first time in their lives.

Neurologically it’s as if their three loosely connected brains (reptile/fight or flight lower, mammalian/emotional middle, human/rational upper brains) are reconfigured and reconnected so tightly that all through them the feel the way a Porsche door closes instead of a rickety pick up truck.

This is further reinforced through fulfilling a mission towards the most noble of vision, to stop terrorism and tyranny and to let freedom ring.

Skills + squadron + mission (kill the enemy) + purpose (stop terrorism and tyranny) –> Emboldened and Empowered to win at war.

Then they hit the horrors of war.  They are trained that war will be ugly and that there will be enemy deaths, fellow soldier deaths and innocent civilian deaths.  As my partner Lt. General Steele says, “War is not pretty, it’s just necessary.”

But nothing prepares them for what they see with their own eyes and feel sometimes to and through their marrow in spite of all the preparatory training they receive.  War is debasing.  Add to that the continuous concussions, traumatic brain injury and stop loss re-deployments and you have a scenario where their minds begin to fragment.

Their three brains threaten to pull apart, but the even if the mission dims in the face of the horror they confront, their squadron, having each other’s back and training keep them functioning on auto-pilot outwardly even as their humanity is suffering body blows almost daily.

And because of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” code about feeling scared and vulnerable, brittle and even fragile, they individually believe that everyone else is handling it better, not knowing that nearly everyone is experiencing the same sharp and blunt trauma to their psyche, their spirit, their will, their emotions and their humanity.

When their training and squadron is no longer able to keep them together, suicide becomes an option and sometimes the only way to relieve the pain when they are still enlisted.

And when they are finally discharged without a mission, without a fire team and without a way to reacclimate to civilian life to hold them together, they go back to their communities to families they can’t relate to and can’t relate to them, to spouses and siblings and parents they frighten and to a job market that is afraid to hire them, not wanting to take a chance that they will be the one to snap.

All of the above should inform our efforts to help.  All returning soldiers need:

1. A fire team to be part of in transitioning, where a knowing look or nod can foster much more understanding than anything they can say or hear from their families.
2. A “boot camp” that take a badly beated up Porsche, breaks that down, and rebuilds it into –how about a Chevy Volt? –with the mindset, skillset and resources they will need to land on their feet and march to the life they so richly deserve.  This step is the “tipping point,” because like it or not, afraid of falling apart or not, they will need to have a setting in groups to “have the horror heard that will heal the hurt” run by highly skilled and confident therapists and facilitators who can constantly tell them, “No, you are not falling apart.  The way you are built for war is coming apart so that you can be rebuilt from the inside out, reconfigured and repurposed for civilian life.”
3. A new mission and vision for what victory as a civilian looks like
4. A strategy and tactics that they participate in developing to fulfill that mission and realize that vision

So that their new winning formula becomes:

Skills + squadron + mission (to be as effective in civilian life as you were at war) + purpose (support your family and community) –> Emboldened and Empowered to succeed at home and “live happily ever after”… because they have earned it.

- Dr. Mark Goulston speaking at Big Task Weekend, September 30, 2010, which every year brings together senior management and executives from Fortune 500 corporations, government, non-profits and NGO’s to learn the skill and power of collaborative action.

In his presentation, Dr. Goulston tells how his colleague, close friend, former Chairman of the Board of Teach for America and trainer of inner city teachers extraordinaire Lee Canter taught him that the secret to getting through to people is to “get into their listening.” Goulston took that lesson to heart in writing his #1 international best selling book, “Just Listen” Discover the Secret to Getting Through to Absolutely Anyone (Amacom, $24.95).

Don’t ask a “reverse cognitive bias” thinker to come up with “goals.”

Not too long ago I spoke to Frank, the CEO of a $2 billion health products company, “How often do you use the word ‘goals’ in your management meetings?”

He answered with a revealing chuckle, “Always.”

I replied, “I take it from that chuckle that the room doesn’t exactly jump all over it with ‘when do we get started’ enthusiasm.”

“No.  I don’t think any of them have that kind of enthusiasm.  There are even several who have a ‘deer in the headlights’ look when I bring up the topic of goals,” he replied.

I explained: “Frank. You use the word ‘goals’ naturally, because as a successful CEO, your mind has a ‘forward cognitive bias’ that enables you to keep your eye on the horizon and articulate a compelling vision and then translate it into a strategy to get there. Most people in a company, who will never make it to CEO, have a ‘reverse cognitive bias’ in their thinking.  That means that their minds are more comfortable reacting to something after someone else like you has laid it out. It also means that the word ‘goals’ doesn’t compute in these non-forward bias, reactive individuals.”

“That’s very true,” Frank interjected, “in fact I can tell those people with leadership potential by their ability to look forward. And I must admit, we’re challenged right now in having any such individuals.  As you say, nearly all of them listen and then react to what I come up with.  What do I do about that?”

“First, realize that you have a serious succession challenge if you have few if any who can look forward and you will need to address that,” I answered and then continued, “but second, you will probably gather more enthusiastic participation and possibly even innovation if you frame the way you begin a meeting to match their ‘reverse cognitive bias’ minds instead of expecting them to be naturally forward thinkers.

To do that, ask your managers at the beginning of the next meeting: ‘a) Imagine that our meeting to discuss x agenda is over and you’re returning to your desks, your emails and your other work; b) Then imagine your saying to yourself, ‘That was a very productive meeting.  I now clearly understand what our strategic imperatives are and why they’re so important.  Furthermore I have a clear idea of what my department and specifically I need to do to make that happen and I am really pumped up to do those things; c) Can you all imagine having that reaction when you leave this meeting in 90 minutes? (hopefully they will nod in agreement); d) If so, then tell me what happens during this meeting to cause that reaction to happen.’”

“Then use their responses to guide how you lead that meeting,” I concluded.

When you cause your people to imagine that positive end result and then ask them to react to it by detailing what would need to occur to make it happen, you not only tailor your directive communication to their “reverse cognitive bias” mind, you set the stage for them to participate more fully in the meeting.

And as we all know, the more you get a team to participate in defining a desired outcome and strategy, the more inclined they are to participate in its execution.

* The above is adapted from a brief TED-like talk I gave at Big Task Weekend on September 30, 2010.  The essence of  my comments are that to persuade people in these “resistant to being sold times” it’s not enough to “get where people are coming from,” you need to “get into their listening.”  By that I mean not just what they listen to, but also how they listen.

If the above speaks to you, my partner, Dr. John Ullmen from the UCLA Anderson School of Management, and I have developed the Persuade Without Pushing program to teach you and your people how to sell your ideas, products and services in a post-selling world.  To find out more about our 2 – 4 hour presentation that will give you a taste as well as many immediately implementable takeaways contact either me at: mgoulston@markgoulston.com or Dr. Ullmen at: john@ullmen.com.
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8 Signs of a Jerk

1. Interrupts.
2. Doesn’t take turns.
3. Takes advantage of people who are down
4. Gloats in victory.
5. Is sullen in defeat.
6. Is not fair.
7. Lack integrity.
8. Is the kind of person you’ll avoid if you possibly can.

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* Mental Real Estate – When you can name something that already has emotions attached to it in your customer’s or client’s mind, you own a piece of their “mental real estate” and have the beginning of traction (Familiarity + Emotion = Traction). When you twist or tweak or re-purpose that name in a certain way that surprises them, the Traction + Novelty deepens your connection to people’s emotions and in the end, their minds. For instance, the word “pirates” is kind of sexy in the minds of children, therefore “Pirates of the Caribbean” (and Disney) owns that mental real estate connected to “pirates” in children’s minds. Similarly, “jerk off” occupies some mental real estate in the minds of many adolescent and young adult men. So, voila, “Jerk Off Kit” may have caused many of you to open this when you normally wouldn’t have. On the other hand, because of that same embarrassment/shame laden mental real estate, it triggered a number of you to not open the email and furthermore to unsubscribe from my list. If that is the case, that’s too bad, because if you had opened it, you may have learned something that would be useful to you.

Me: What? You have a hospital names after you. You’ve created an industry and thousands of jobs.

Patient: I have all the admiration, love and respect that money can buy and that’s all it’s worth. I’m not really close to anyone… not my wife, not my ex’s, not my children from three marriages and not my friends. I always played it close to the chest and never let anyone in and now I’m paying the price. Maybe, just maybe, I out-smarted myself.

Getting to know people like the patient above can teach you a lot about life and what a good life means. Granted there are many people unlike my patient above who are able to feel fulfilled by great accomplishments that benefited others even if it was at the cost of feeling close to anyone. However there are many who like my patient feel a sense of emptiness even after a life of great accomplishment.

Something that I have noticed in a number of those in the second category suffer from what I call the “Syndrome of Disavowed Yearning.”

They often come from parents where their dad was too busy with his job or career and their mother lacked warmth. Often these were not bad parents. The dad was often worried about earning a living and so was focused more on his boss or his customers and clients than his family. The mom often came from a mother who also lacked warmth (it was often a condition passed on for generations).

In the ideal situation, a child feels most solid from the inside out when there is warmth (usually from a mom) to comfort them when they are hurt or afraid or just plain lonely and “you can do it” guidance, support and coaching (usually from a dad) that can lead to confidence and courage.

If these are missing, that child’s personality discovers that instead of feeling the pain from the lack of warmth and enthusiastic support, it hurts less if you disavow needing either.

In the people who become high achievers, they sublimate what would have been an aching yearning into accomplishing things. If you’re like them, even if that doesn’t fill you up from the inside out, the conditional grin of approval for what you do instead of the love and celebration for who you are can certainly distract you from the yearning. However, as great a way as that is to cope, down deep something at your core feels false. And after many years of accomplishments, those grins of conditional love and approval wear thin and you can feel empty.

In contrast to the patient and condition above, I remember an entirely different man I will call Mr. Cohen.

It was 4:30 in the afternoon and I had just finished doing an EKG on Mr. Cohen. Unlike everyone else living at the Jewish Home for the Aged in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts, Mr. Cohen was spry and totally alert for his 87 years. As a third- year medical student with much living (and learning) ahead of me, I couldn’t understand why he was staying in this place, which well appointed as it was still remained a last holding unit for people who were waiting to die.

I asked Mr. Cohen why he lived in this morgue when he was clearly doing so well. He looked at me with a patient, knowing look and explained: “Two floors below us is my wife, Emma. Three years ago, she developed Alzheimer’s disease and then had a stroke on top of that. On the very best of days, which don’t occur that often, I think she might recognize me. At all other times, she’s lost.”

He went on to tell me to me that Emma and he had fled the Russian revolution together, and that more than a few occasions she had saved his life. The couple made their way to America, started a tailoring business and raised a wonderful family. “I tell my family not to visit as much as they’d like,” he said, “because I want them to make sure they enjoy their families now and because their mom and I are doing fine.”

Each day, he would wake up, go downstairs to his wife’s room, bathe her, replace the diaper she now needed, put her into a sun dress, braid her hair, have breakfast with her and then read his newspapers and books as he sat beside her.

I didn’t get it. Why was he doing this with a woman who couldn’t even recognize him? “This poor man must be eaten up with guilt,” I thought.

I suggested, presumptuously, that Mr. Cohen’s guilt would not help his wife. The old man looked at me with an amused sparkle in his eyes and shook his head at my stupidity.

“You really don’t understand, do you? This is where I want to be. Maybe someday you will understand.”

It’s been thirty five years since my visit with Mr. Cohen and I think I do finally understand. Instead of guilt, he felt joy in the presence of someone he had loved and been loved by for sixty years.

It is difficult to change from a human doing to a human being, but as I observed first hand from people who died having it all, but who felt as if they had nothing and others who had very little, but felt they had it all, it’s probably something worth the effort.

Many parents may disagree on how to raise their children, but few would disagree that Child A below entering college or the work force has a much better chance for a good life than Child B.

Child A

• Focused
• Resilient
• Persistent
• Passionate
• Goal-oriented
• Handles Disappointment Well
• Doesn’t Take Self Too Seriously
• Coachable

Child B

• Scattered
• Quits
• Bails
• Bored
• No Goals
• Is Easily Upset
• Hypersensitive
• Know-it-all

12 Steps to a More Self-Confident Child*

1. Print up this blog for your children and the article from Divorce Magazine (from which these charts are excerpted) for your spouse (or ex-spouse).
2. Ask your children and your spouse if you can sit down with them to discuss something that relates to your children’s futures and is on your mind.
3. Have your children read this blog and have you and your spouse read the Divorce Magazine article and look at the chart re: Child A and Child B (which will help you be aware of how you and your relationship with your spouse influence your children’s personalities).
4. Ask your children if they think that Child A will not only be more successful and happier, but will be looked upon more positively by friends and others who may be that child’s teachers, boss or even future boy friend or girl friend (Hopefully they will agree).
5. Ask your children how they believe they would be viewed with regard to the traits in both Child A and Child B by their friends and those people in their life (including you) who have the power to grade them (teachers), accept them into college, hire them, promote them and give them raises.
6. Ask your children to describe what they do or don’t do that would cause those people to see them that way.
7. If your children answer that they are more like the insecure Child B rather than the confident Child A, ask them if they would like to become more like Child A? (Hopefully they will again say, “Yes”).
8. If your children answer, “Yes,” ask them what they specifically would need to do differently to become more like Child A and what you and their other parent will need to do differently to help them become that way.
9. Ask your spouse if they will participate in working together with you to help your children become more like Child A.
10. Set up a plan with one observable positive “do” behavior and one observable negative “stop doing” behavior for your children to commit to changing every month (after a month that behavior will become a habit and if they pick too many behaviors to change, they will not be able to do it) and keep doing this until they become more like Child A than Child B.
11. Set a date every two weeks to check in and to see how they are coming along with that change and for your children and you and your spouse to offer refinements to improve those selected behaviors even further.
12. Also include you and your spouse changing your behaviors according to what your children say you each could do differently to help them.

* This approach was inspired by the work and ideas of Marshall Goldsmith, one of the world’s preeminent executive coaches and author of What Got You Here Won’t Get You There: How Successful People Become Even More Successful. Check that book out if you want to improve your interpersonal skills and greatly increase your career success.