Usable Insight – From a Crappy to a Happy New Year – Be Bitter or Better, The Choice is Ours
Usable Insight – An Opportunity for Poise (scroll to bottom if you prefer to not read the following gmail s.o.s.)
Last week my mgoulston-at-gmail.com and mgoulston-at-markgoulston.com accounts were hacked. My mgoulston-at-gmail.com was then phished and a message was sent out to contacts on that list about my being stuck in Madrid without money and for you to wire me money at m.goulston-at-yahoo.com which is a fraudulent account. PLEASE DO NOT DO THAT.
I have made numerous attempts to connect with gmail to reset my password, but to no avail and they have told me they could not verify me as the owner of that site (I was not able to answer many of the questions regarding dates when my gmail and google applications were started and it was my fault for not being up to date with security measures). I would appreciate any help with getting to speak to a person at gmail who could assist me (apparently their security is much better than mine).
Now for the Usable Insight – An Opportunity for Poise
Every time the world disappoints, upsets or injures you it triggers three concentric parts of your personality.
At the center is an unforgiving streak which if unmanaged and allowed to grow will turn you bitter. A bitter person is someone who is 100% unforgiving and at the end of their life is miserable and makes those around them miserable.
The next circle is the retaliatory streak of your personality which if unmanaged will cause you to strike back with hostility or shut down emotionally which will in time lead to continuous conflict and chaos in your life.
The third circle which sits atop the other two is the distrustful streak in your personality which if unmanaged will estrange you from the world, possibly life and maybe even yourself.
The more successfully you manage all three, learn what they have to teach you, allow them to make you wiser and then to dissipate the more you have the opportunity to demonstrate poise. Poise is one of the best and most admired qualities a person can possess and demonstrate. The presence of it can win you a Presidential election (i.e. Obama, 2008) and the lack of it can cost you one (i.e. Clinton, McCain, 2008). And if you haven’t noticed, poise is in short supply. Poise is also like a muscle and your best opportunity to grow and strengthen it is when bad things happen to you. Instead of hitting back when you are hit, you show poise. Poise is neither passive or weak. It is being formidable without being forceful. It is also not a lack of passion, but the passion is connected to a mission that serves others and a higher purpose rather than a selfish, greedy or entitled personal agenda.
Losing thousands of emails and contacts and reducing the number of emails I receive per day from a couple hundred to a dozen has pretty much brought my business to a near standstill, but it is also a great opportunity for poise. What I have done is reach out to people who receive my email mailing (a list I share Usable Insights with and do not and will not use to directly solicit business or sell services or products other than announcing events) to let you know what has happened and ask that you send me your contact information if we are in contact with each other.
Your response has been heartwarming and deeply caring and the offer by a number of you to make an enthusiastic introduction to the contacts on your lists to help me repopulate a list has been frankly overwhelming (if you want to share your information with me go to: drgoulston@gmail.com).
What is the takeaway and Usable Insight for me and for you?
One of the biggest mistakes you can make in life is to focus on retaliating against those people who have hurt you or didn’t and don’t care about you and take the people who did and do care for granted. If you do focus on the former, you run the risk of becoming negative, cynical and embittered which means that those who didn’t and don’t care will have won, not to mention causing the people who do care about you to feel that their love and caring is not worth very much.
Happy New Year and don’t let those who don’t care about you blind you to those who do.
January 1st, 2012 at 2:26 pm
Thank you, Mark! What a great insight to start off the New Year with. I love your definition of poise and will attempt to practice it as one of my goals (not resolutions) for 2012.
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January 2nd, 2012 at 7:29 am
I prefer to take breaks throughout my day and browse through some blogs to find out what people, groups and companies are talking about. This blog entry seems to be rather interesting, but how do you think it will effect the majority of the public?
January 2nd, 2012 at 9:39 am
Author James Fallows wrote a long article in The Atlantic magazine (nov 2011 issue) about his experience when his wife’s gmail got hacked. As a journalist he visited Google to write about how they handle this, so there might be some useful ideas in his article. It is online at http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/11/hacked/8673/
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Man, am I sorry I did not read this post sooner. You’re off to a great start, Dr. G – thanks so much for the great insights you share. May your New Year be a healthy, happy and profitable one for you and your family.
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