April 12, 2008
08:25 am | 0 recommendations | Be the first to comment
(also at basil and spice and peoplejam)
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.
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.
Recommend This If you liked this, let others know:
April 9, 2008
05:50 pm | 0 recommendations | Be the first to comment
The three most important abilities of a leader are:
- to see and articulate a vison whose compelling, captivating and convincing qualities withstand the test of time and the assault from fear and greed
- to identify and recruit talent to turn that vision into a reality
- to engage that talent to want to carry out that vision
The dilemma for the Obama, Clinton and McCain and for us is that the presidency represents a great opportunity for all three to satisfy their political aspirations and ambitions, but none of them have a vision to fulfill.
They are so busy saying, "No," to the present visionless administration and, "Yes," to the voters they speak to along the campaign route that it is unclear exactly what they see.
And to be fair about the present administration, George Bush's vision about a world free from terror was a pretty compelling, captivating and convincing vision; the flaw was in the poor preparation, management and execution of that vision.
Regarding points 2 and 3, all three have the ability to identify and recruit talent, but Clinton
appears to be negatively distinguishing herself with an inability to
continuously engage them.
I would posit that without a compelling, captivating and convincing vision it will be difficult in the long run to recruit and engage the talent to be successful as President. Charisma and charm is enough to get people pumped up temporarily (think Obama), but only when people see where they are going and like what they see can the mission be sustained and fulfilled.
What would be a vision that would compel, captivate and convince and continue to do so?
One I would offer is the vision of your and my children's children and grandchildren waking up on any day of their life with the abilities and opportunities for success, happiness and creating an even better world for their children and grandchildren without the fear of terrorism or corruption despoiling the landscape they look out upon.
What such a world look like and how we could reverse engineer it would then become our mission.
Recommend This If you liked this, let others know:
April 7, 2008
09:26 pm | 0 recommendations | Be the first to comment
Help Wanted: American President
Qualifications: Must be playing with a full deck
With
the media's teeth firmly embedded in the necks of the three
Presidential candidates, it's become increasing unclear what we can
truly believe or not believe about them. But one thing is clear. The
ambivalence that voters feel toward Obama, Clinton and McCain tells us
more about ourselves than about them.
The reason for that
ambivalence is that there is something that each possesses that appeals
to us, but there are other qualities about each of them that cause us
to pause and be wary.
In order to relax our guards, sign on the
dotted line, and put our faith in a Presidential candidate, he or she
will need to engender in us: Trust, Confidence and Respect.
So
here's the rub. Obama has inspired (unless the new spate of allegations
ruins it) trust and respect, but not confidence (given his lack of
experience); McCain has also inspired trust and respect, but not
confidence (given his lack of broad based experience and, sorry to
admit the obvious, his age); Clinton has instilled confidence (due to
her and Bill's combined experience, but sorry Hillary, you ain't very
inspiring), but not trust or respect.
Until a candidate
spontaneously evokes all of these three qualities, he or she will
continue to trigger dissonance in us. Dissonance occurs when what we
see or hear doesn't match what we feel, a.k.a. What are you going to do
for me?/What are you going to do to me?
These elements are equally important in a CEO, especially of a public company, where all eyes are upon them.
If a CEO doesn't instill all of these, how can they do so?
I
developed the PEP CEO Challenge to solve such a dilemma. But it is not
for the "faint of heart" or a CEO who in the words of Jack Nicholson,
from "A Few Good Men," "Can't handle the truth."
To use it as a
CEO, ask your people, directors, stockholders, customers/clients,
vendors to anonymously rate how much Passion, Enthusiasm and Pride they
feel about your services, products, company and YOU on a scale of 1 to
10. Then ask them to suggest what you and your company need to do to
increase their rating if it is anything less than 10-10-10.
(c) 2008 Mark Goulston
Recommend This If you liked this, let others know:
April 2, 2008
10:52 am | 0 recommendations | Be the first to comment
After the initial disappointment of not getting into their top choice wears off,
most college students feel like failures not from the rejection.
It comes from internalizing the feeling they have let their parents down.
These are the parents who were over-invested in the result from the start,
who can't get over their disappointment
and will have a hard time hearing and accepting this.
- Dean of Admissions, Ivy League College
In my blog, "Did Your Kid Get Rejected from College?" I talked about turning college rejection into an opportunity for poise. I spoke too soon.
"Mark,
you could provide a real service to students and their parents if you
could suggest two things to them. I can't do it, because I am currently
fielding the 'why not my kid?' calls that I am being flooded with. Few
of them are ready to hear it and certainly not from me," a Dean of
Admissions at an Ivy League college told me yesterday.
He
explained that most college students that don't get into their top
choice, feel deeply upset and disappointed at first. It is natural and
even healthy to feel those feelings and even vent to their parents
their upset. At that point parents should respond with: "Oh God, that's
awful I can tell how upset you are and I'm sorry." Then the parents
should stop talking and let their kids continue to vent. In most cases
they will get it out of their systems in a matter of one to several
days.
After their upset has peaked and is calming down, they
should say something like: "I'm really excited about the choices you
have from the colleges that did accept you and the next four years
you're going to have will be amazing in ways you can't imagine." You
don't want to say this too soon. If you do, it's as if you are trying
to talk them out of being initial upset, which they have earned the
right to feel after all the work they put in at high school and going through the application process.
The
second suggestion had to do with something so very painful and so very
unnecessary that he sees so often. Within a few days, children are
usually ready and able to move on past their disappointment. They begin
to envision and enthusiastically look forward to going to the
college(s) they were accepted to.
What gets in the way are
parents who can't get past their own disappointment in the college
rejection. Rather than the parents and children accepting that college
acceptance is very arbitrary and capricious, the parents continue to
look chagrined and downcast. They say they feel badly for their
children, when the parents are the ones feeling more upset and who
can't move on. He said that in such situations, students tend to look
at their parents and internalize their mother and father's
disappointment into feeling as if the child has failed them.
The
Dean concluded: "Getting parents to separate their own disappointment
from that of their child's is the single greatest obstacle to the child
getting over and past it."
Recommend This If you liked this, let others know:
March 30, 2008
05:17 pm | 0 recommendations | Be the first to comment
(also at basil and spice)
A Presidential Prediction From the World of Emotional Intelligence
If
you haven't noticed, more people act (or more accurately react) from
emotion than reason. If you need evidence of that, you are not only out
of touch with the world at large, but out of touch with your
world. Just ask any of people around you, who find you to be so
logical, but oh, so out of touch (Hillary, are you listening? Probably
not).
And now for a prediction.
Neither Clinton nor Obama
will receive enough delegates to capture the Democratic nomination on
the first ballot in August. That will then throw the convention open to
nominating its ultimate ticket.
By that time, the Democratic
party will feel as the rest of the country feels that Obama is great,
but just too inexperienced to do the job. Clinton, despite being
married, will feel too much like that crabby, spinster aunt who comes
to Thanksgiving, because you can't find a way to uninvite her.
Given
those two powerful qualities, McCain will seem like the only grown up
for the job. And unless he self-immolates a la Howard Dean, he will be
viewed as a less lousy alternative than either Obama (for his
inexperience) and Clinton (for her negative personality). That said,
McCain will not be seen as someone that voters want, but merely someone
better than the other options.
Enter Nobel prize winner, Global
Warming (a.k.a. "visionary"), non-pushy, doesn't need the money or job
Al Gore. By the time August rolls around, the unattractiveness of
Clinton's ambition and to a lesser extent, Obama's, will have
negatively impacted people desire for either. What will be fresh is
someone that voters pursue and want instead of people they feel stuck
with.
At that point Al Gore will be approached as a possible
candidate and receive counsel from his family and friends to the extent
of: "Al, what do you need this for? Your life and influence has been
much more positive and wide ranging than anything you ever did in
politics? Why would you want to now re-enter the "zero sum" back
stabbing world of politics?"
Al will respond with: "My core
value and life has been to be of service. My daddy did and so have I
for most of my adult life. I like being an educator on the problems of
global warming, but I may actually have more leverage to help that and
other initiatives as President. And besides, I will agree if elected to
only serve one term, where one of my most important roles is to mentor
Barack Obama to be the real President who makes change happen after I
leave office in 2012."
And if this happens, as they say in fairy tales, "America will live happily every after."
(c) 2008 Mark Goulston
Recommend This If you liked this, let others know:
March 27, 2008
07:05 pm | 0 recommendations | Be the first to comment
Enough of “what was he thinking?” when Eliot and Bill did what they did, “because they could.”
The question that is on peoples' minds is “what the heck was she thinking?” when Silda Wall and Hillary looked on as their men went public about after being caught with their hand in the wrong cookie jar. Why so much curiosity?
Could it be that our salacious voyeuristic instincts are just getting off wondering what these women are thinking of their man’s behavior or could it be that the look is not that unfamiliar to millions of women who have looked that way at their men or to their men who have been looked at that way.
What has happened to marriage? Baby, baby where did our love go?
I remember a husband once saying to his wife in my therapy room: “What ever happened to my sweet little girl who used to adore me?”
Without missing a beat his wife responded: “You stopped being adorable.”
I have seen hundreds of couples where husbands have the same complaints: “She used to think I was funny and be so warm and so nurturing and now she looks at me like I’m silly and everything is a negotiation. I still love her, but I don’t think she likes me.”
What’s up? And what brought marriage down to its knees?
Wherever you go, you see it? Women directing, barking orders and men passive aggressively dawdling or sullenly muttering, “Get off my frickin back!” That look of adoration in her eyes had been replaced by annoyance, irritation and impatience. The men don’t like it, but since one of the
rules they still live by is “It’s not okay to hit a girl,” they take their hurt and anger out in other ways.
That might mean alcohol, gambling, cars, motorcycles. And sometimes it means looking elsewhere
for the adoration and respect that their wives once felt for them. It could be with an affair or using their imagination and attributing those feelings to a smile on a prostitute or the smile from a porn star on their computer monitor.
What happened? How did the strong foundation for love become a floor that drops out of a marriage?
The answer is that the love was flawed from the beginning. It turns out he never knew her or cared to really know her in the first place. He just loved the way she made him feel…about himself.
And when she discovered that she was being used and often made promises in the heat of passion that he never had intended to keep, she fired back and started to use him in return to father a child, feather a nest or support her career aspirations. What started out as unconditional love
deteriorated into “zero sum loving.”
And the solution? Couples need to realize and accept that true intimacy only begins when the
intoxication and illusion of early love and lust dies down and gives way to reality. They need to see that immature love is about loving the other for what they do right and mature love is about loving someone in spite of what they do wrong. If you look for it, there is much to love in spite of what each other does wrong. You just have to look for it.
Just because early love is an illusion, doesn’t mean you have to become disillusioned with later love.
(also at basil and spice)
Recommend This If you liked this, let others know:
March 22, 2008
12:44 am | 0 recommendations | Be the first to comment
(also seen at basil and spice)
My first reaction to Barack Obama's "More Perfect Union" speech was how utterly un-American it was.
My
second reaction is that I only hope that he continues down that path,
because if he does, he offers America a tremendous opportunity to move
out of and beyond the morass it finds itself in.
His handwritten
speech was not for American Presidents only; it demonstrated three of
the best qualities that any leader can possess and what constitutes
taking on the "real" special interests or shall I say cultural
proclivities that have got America and many American companies into the
morass in which they finds themselves.
Conflict Avoidance
– As a country and as a people we don't deal very effectively with
conflict. Instead we react to it by either "bunkering" and trying to
deny reality (such as continuing to believe we could go from supreme
creditor to deepest debtor, without negative repercussions for our
global standing and influence) or by becoming belligerent and hostile.
In his speech, Obama stepped into the fray, articulated and understood
without condoning the positions and points of views of the parties he
focused on and then took on another current and self-defeating American
tendency.
Transactional Myopia – America has
slipped from the high minded and highly principled mindset of figuring
out the right thing to do and doing it to a transactionally myopic "get
the deal, do the deal, next deal" way of thinking and behaving.
American culture has replaced relationships with transactionships which
are "zero sum" and always short sighted. George H. Bush was less myopic
and understood that if you break Iraq you own it, whereas George W.
Bush's leadership (or lack thereof) derives more from his M.B.A., a
degree not known for developing people who are circumspect. People's
conversations, even with their loved ones, have all but been replaced
with negotiations. Negotiation is about winning or avoiding losing;
relationships are about relating. Relating requires listening in order
to understand vs. listening in order to come up with your next
counterpoint. Obama senses the short sightedness and doomed-to-fail
transactional approach and this may explain his reluctance to engage in
"eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth" banter with Hillary Clinton Clinton-and-Obama-Economic-Plans Mar-08 .
The effectiveness in that approach for Clinton garnering votes in Ohio
and Texas only speaks to how many Americans are stuck at that low
minded, low ideal, take vs. give state of mind (which one can
understand when surviving daily can distract anyone from high
mindedness). Obama enjoined and ennobled us to do better by
transcending out of transactional myopia and implied that in doing so
we would be able to transform America from where it is to where it
could be.
Object Capriciousness – "Object
constancy" is one of psychology's most awkward, but most explanatory
terms. It is the ability of a person to maintain a connection and a
relationship with another person, a goal, or hope in the face of
disappointment, frustration, hurt and injury. It is the single
greatest measure of maturity and its lack, the greatest indicator of
immaturity. That is why children and immature adults when upset with a
friend or a spouse, will completely lose their connection and throw
away a relationship by declaring: "I hate you, you're not my friend" or
"Let's get a divorce." Obama demonstrated this by asserting his
continued support and even love for the Reverend Jeremiah Wright while
decrying his statements and positions and confronted all of us with our
continued relationships with people we disagree with. Awareness of this
is also what caused a philosopher (whose name I can't find) to
conclude: "The measure of a civilization is how it treats those who
have hurt it."
Until and unless a leader, be it American
President or corporate CEO can enjoin, ennoble and empower his people
to overcome their conflict avoidance, their transactional myopia, and
object capriciousness a country or a company will be stuck wondering
what ever became of it rather than seizing the grand opportunity of
what it could become.
Recommend This If you liked this, let others know:
March 14, 2008
08:05 am | 0 recommendations | Be the first to comment
How to Earn Forgiveness and Rebuild Trust After Betrayal
Too err is human,
to take full responsibility for it,
face and pay all the consequences, divine
We and Eliot Spitzer may never know why he did what he did? It’s unclear if we or Bill Clinton ever figured out why he did what he did.
But
what is clear is the “rubbernecking” that this story is causing as if
people are watching some roadside disaster. The attraction may be that
the exposure of Spitzer’s immoral, not to mention illegal behavior, is
causing waves of anxiety among the not-yet-caught men who are flirting
with similar disasters and the women who love them. It has been a bad
few days for denial.
I can imagine millions of men who have been
cheating on their wives through prostitutes or mistresses or tip toeing
into their dens and home offices to lose themselves in the world of
pornography, scurrying around to erase phone numbers and delete
computer files and swear to themselves that they will never engage in
such behavior again.
I can also imagine these men looking more guilty than usual and raising the suspicions of their wives.
Finally I can imagine volatile confrontations taking place that are finally exposing marital infidelity of one form or another.
If such activities are exposed, can the damage be undone? Once trust is broken by betrayal, can it be regained?
There
is a road back, but it takes practicing the 4 R's to respond to the 4
H's you triggered in the other person by betraying their trust.
The 4 H’s*:
When you betrayed your spouse:
- They felt HURT by you for taking away trust and safety
- They HATE you for turning their world upside down
- They’re HESITANT TO TRUST and be re-hurt by you
- They’re HOLDING ONTO A GRUDGE to protect themselves from accidentally lowering their guard and being vulnerable again
The 4 R's:
- To ease the HURT you need to demonstrate REMORSE to
show that you know you damaged something in them, by looking them
directly in the eye and admitting you're truly sorry, with no excuses
(this is the stumbling block for very narcissistic people and something
Bill Clinton had trouble with during the Monica situation)
- To respond to the HATE you need to show RESTITUTION and
offer a payback for what you took away from them by giving up something
that matters to you or letting them verbally punch themselves out at
you for making them feel crazy while you lied to them
- To lower their HESITATION TO TRUST you need to REHABILITATE yourself
to let them see a new way of dealing with those situations that caused
you to stray and that you actually prefer to your old destructive
behavior
- To get them to stop HOLDING ONTO A GRUDGE, you need to REQUEST FORGIVENESS after practicing those 3 R’s for a minimum of 6 months so they can become a part of your personality
If
the other person is still unable to forgive you after that, you are no
longer unforgivable (if you haven’t gone beyond betrayal into abuse),
they are unforgiving.
It's clear what is in it for you if they
forgive you, but what's in it for them? When you earnestly practice the
4 R's above, you enable the person you injured to go from fear and
loathing to feeling safe, trusting and even liking you again---and that
feeling is called, "euphoria."
*A full explanation of the 4 H’s and 4 R’s and how to use them to rebuild trust is available in The 6 Secrets of a Lasting Relationship: How to Fall in Love Again…and Stay There (Perigee, $13.95) by Mark Goulston with Philip Goldberg.
© 2008 Mark Goulston
Recommend This If you liked this, let others know:
March 1, 2008
12:34 pm | 0 recommendations | Be the first to comment
Hillary Clinton has thrown out an important challenge, namely, "It's 3
AM, you have a national security crisis on your hands, who do you want
answering the phone?"
I am anxious about Barack Obama picking up
that phone, but I would be anxious if Hillary Clinton picked it up
as well. Let's face it, we'd all be anxious about whoever picked up
that phone (as all of America was when it was J.F.K. in the Cuban
missile crisis).
As I look back at the group of Presidents since
J.F.K., I think the person I would be least anxious about picking up
that phone would be Ronald Reagan. And even I am surprised by my choice. How and why would I pick someone who was a running mate of Bonzo?
Of
all the Presidents since J.F.K., Reagan had three of the central
qualities of great leaders: 1) a vision and the will to commit to it;
2) talented people; 3) the ability to engage the talent of those people.
Of
the two Democratic candidates, Obama seems to be more successful than
Clinton in the vision department, the ability to surround himself with
talented people (at least with regard to running a campaign), and the
ability to engage the passionate involvement of those talented people.
True his speeches often seem sweeping and less detailed in nature, but
Clinton's seem to focus on specific issues without a vision. If we look
at details as the charms on a bracelet and vision as the bracelet,
Obama seems to epitomize the bracelet, Clinton the charms (without the
charm).
If many of our problems are the result of charms (or
silos if you prefer) of special interest groups competing against each
other in an uncharming, "zero sum" fashion, it would seem that we are
in sore, if not dire, need to find a way to get all the special
interest groups on the same page and pulling together in the same
direction.
I question Clinton's ability to: 1) articulate a
single, ennobling and compelling vision; 2) surround herself with
talent (reference her changing staff and subsequent finger pointing,
responsibility evading squabbles between them); 3) engage her staff in
a passionate call to action manner that works.
Obama has shown
himself to be able to paint a vision and to enroll people passionately
in service of it. He has also shown himself to be someone who can
select talented people with regard to running a highly successful
campaign. Whether this is enough to successfully lead a country remains
to be seen.
But it does seem clear that a leader who can't
articulate a compelling vision, select talented people, or engage them
has less of a chance for success.
(c) 2008 Mark Goulston
Recommend This If you liked this, let others know:
March 1, 2008
01:05 am | 0 recommendations | 2 comments
Hillary Clinton + Anticipatory Rejection + Fearful Aggression = Lost Presidential Bid
Anticipatory rejection
is a state of mind where you believe that regardless of what you say,
people will push back, counterattack, minimize, deny, become defensive,
make excuses, blame or use some other tactic to reject whatever comes
out of your mouth and also deny responsibility (one can only imagine
the exchanges between Hillary and Bill towards the end of his second
term).
It
is usually based on the experience of years – if not a lifetime –of
people pushing back at you and not accepting what you say and then
coming to believe that it will always be that way and acting
preemptively.
Fearful aggression is a behavior and something that show dog trainers know well and that we all watched in the movie, "Best in Show." It occurs when a tightly wound, highly pedigreed dog (or person) is cornered or frightened, and it reacts with aggression. To
the outsider the dog appears to be on the attack, but from inside the
dog, it is completely fueled by the fear of being attacked.
In
a nutshell, when you're on the defensive (fueled by your anticipatory
rejection mindset and fearful aggression reaction) and nobody is
attacking you, you are perceived as being both on the offensive and paranoid…and you offend everyone.
And
the solution? Maybe an update on Freud's famous dictum: "Where id was,
let ego be" (ego as in being in touch with reality) is called for, such
as: "Where ego (self-righteousness) was, let graciousness be."
© 2008 Mark Goulston
Recommend This If you liked this, let others know:
