Technology loves and thrives and makes gobs of money on conspicuous consumption.
— Mark Goulston
One of the reasons it is so difficult to break a connection to something or someone you have imprinted on is that after you imprint, it seeds into your mind and goes from working memory to stored, hard-wired memory from which it is much more difficult to sever that attachment.
In my executive advising role, my persona, which seems to work very well with both women and men, is being 'the big brother you always wanted.' I am fortunate to have two such big brothers, so this isn't just a theoretical construct.
MIA stands for 'missing in action,' which is the way others can experience you when you're too busy multi-tasking, being pulled at by the world and by everything that's going on in your head, and, essentially, when you're too busy being busy.
If fun puts a smile on your face, beauty and elegance put a smile in your heart and take your breath away. It's longer-lasting and more satisfying than fun.
When you're trying to persuade people, more often than not, they feel you're being pushy. When you focus on influencing them, they're much less defensive and open to hearing what you have to say.
In the first 20 seconds of talking, your light is green: your listener is liking you as long as your statement is relevant to the conversation and, hopefully, in service of the other person. But unless you are an extremely gifted raconteur, people who talk for more than roughly half a minute at a time are boring and often perceived as too chatty.
When you're actually talking over someone, it's as if you're just pontificating and they're not even there. And their body language - they're trying to get away from you. And if you're pontificating at an audience, and there's a break, the non-martyrs in the audience are not going to come back. I mean, they just want to get away from you.
It's no fun being a salesperson when it feels like you're talking to a wall. That's what it feels like when you haven't learned your customer's points of interest.
Braggarts are insecure and need attention, and bragging often has the opposite effect on most people when you're trying to gain their respect and increase your influence.
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.
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.
When someone is complimenting you, they are sharing how your actions or behaviors impacted them. They are not asking if you agree.
Without the ambition to raise oneself to life's challenges, growth and innovation would never happen.
Few things detract more from your credibility and the respect of your colleagues and peers than being called on the carpet to deflect accusations and defend an untruth.
Be comfortable in your own skin. Comfort and discomfort are contagious.
The best way to learn to be present and develop presence is to have the experience of someone you respect and admire being present with and for you.
Over time, many CEOs realize that being able to quickly and effectively confront conflict in their company is a leadership opportunity because people's respect often rises and falls on whether their leader deals with conflict head on or avoids dealing with it.
Women have always run the world; maybe it's time to give them a chance at ruling it.
Too often, founders make decisions before determining whether they are the right thing to do. These decisions often create chaos in their companies where people are having to jump from the last 'great idea' to yet another unproven-and-about-to-be-poorly-executed one.
When you know you haven't been connecting with, persuading, or getting through to someone, consciously pause before meeting them and say to yourself, 'During this conversation, I am committing to being present and to connecting.'
People really don't like to be inconvenienced. If you don't agree with that, ask yourself how you like it when it happens to you.
When you ask someone a question, you trigger an unconscious flashback of their having been put on the spot earlier in life by a teacher, parent, or coach, and you create a syntactical 'you versus me' disconnect.
You may have heard the saying, 'When you're in love, smoke gets in your eyes.' Well when you're talking, smoke gets in your eyes and ears. Once you're on a roll, it's very easy to not notice that you've worn out your welcome.
Buying involves decision-making. It's a performance activity, like sports or acting.
Customers are your best teachers. Learning about your customer's beliefs, values, and priorities teaches you which selling points you should emphasize.
As a general rule, when your child, or anyone in the work force, doesn't know what he/she wants to do, they should instead always be developing skills and competencies that will qualify them for the jobs that companies are most looking to fill and increase their hireability.
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.
People often say, 'I don't need recognition,' and the truth is they are right. We don't need it. But like healthy food and exercise, life is a whole lot better with it.
The more comfortable you become at accepting recognition, the more comfortable you will be with giving it.
Given the choice between instant gratification and the lasting satisfaction of earning the esteem of someone you respect and admire, all but the most small-minded would choose the latter.
President Reagan preached 'trickle down economics' but naively did not reckon on the fact that the wealthy would only care about getting more for themselves instead of caring about helping those with less.
Do what you say you're going to do. Follow through means never having to say you're sorry.
One of the best ways to see how critical being present is to effective leadership is to notice what being absent, distracted, hiding something, and/or agenda-driven does to people's ability to trust, respect, and have confidence in you.
More often than not, CEOs are conflict-avoidant because their role is to define vision and strategy than it is to get into confrontations with negative and toxic people which they can't stand.
When men act up by being degrading, dismissive, condescending, shut off, or sullen, that can often dumbfound you as a woman and get you off balance. At that point, you can feel and look like a deer in the headlights, which makes you even more vulnerable to such a man's next volley of vitriol.
Do something to help your community or people around you. That will help you feel more worthwhile and less alone.
I can still remember my first experience of standing at the edge of the Grand Canyon and looking into it. It was so awesome, it took a fair amount of restraint to prevent me from jumping into it, because I was certain I could fly.
People act on what they want more often than what they need.
One reason some people are long-winded is because they're trying to impress their conversational counterpart with how smart they are, often because they don't actually feel that way underneath. If this is the case for you, realize that continuing to talk will only cause the other person to be less impressed.
I think people don't want to be persuaded. And people don't even like to do the persuading.
Salespeople are in the decision business. Their livelihood depends on the decisions of others.
Have you ever heard someone tell a story but felt they are just mouthing the words without being emotionally connected? When you do this, you often create a more negative reaction than if you hadn't told a story at all. That's because others can see that you're just going through the motions.
Gen X entrepreneurs are frequently smart, tough, tenacious, and self-made. That said, to succeed in their companies, they often have sacrificed being emotionally involved in their marriages and with their children.
If there was one key to happiness in love and life and possibly even success, it would be to go into each conversation you have with this commandment to yourself front and foremost in your mind, 'Just Listen' and be more interested than interesting, more fascinated than fascinating, and more adoring than adorable.
It really takes something for someone to get up the nerve to share the impact you have had on them, and to them, giving you that recognition is liking giving a gift.
People who can't take advantage of opportunity take advantage of people.
If you're fortunate, you'll meet people over the course of your career who exceed your expectations in every way. When you work or spend time with them, you find yourself wanting to be a better person.
Know what's important and what isn't. Have the wisdom to know the right thing to do, the integrity to do it, the character to stand up to those who don't, and the courage to stop those who won't.
Speak the truth. People will forgive an honest mistake; they won't forgive you if you lie.
