If instead of completely focusing on what you are doing, you are racing ahead to something shinier or to the next best thing, you will not develop excellence.
— Mark Goulston
Every business needs to get out of their own mindset and into the aspirational mindsets of their customers and clients and create services and products that are beyond their customers' imagination but will be what they 'gotta have' in the future.
Lousy, ineffective actions lead to lousy outcomes. Terrific, effective actions lead to terrific outcomes.
Something I had learned from 30 years as a psychotherapist turned Fortune 500 executive coach when helping people to calm down is that it is much less important what you tell others than what you enable them to tell you and, in the process, tell themselves that results in them calming themselves down.
As safe and secure as you believe you are is as vulnerable as you can turn out to be.
Despair - or as I like to call it, des-pair - means feeling unpaired in a world in which it feels like everyone else is paired with a good job, a happy marriage, loving family, caring, and hope - and you're not.
PTSD occurs following a trauma that was so awful that in retrospect you don't understand how you survived. What that causes is an extreme feeling of vulnerability that you get past but that doesn't go away.
One word that seems to connect both leaders and employees is: 'outcomes.' Built into that word is the implicit and explicit understanding and agreement that effective actions lead to good outcomes; ineffective actions lead to poor outcomes.
God only knows we need a great role model as a leader who is more leader than they are male or female, who is more about their mission that serves everyone than about ego and personal ambition that only serves them.
Men such as President Bill Clinton don't have trouble showing a warmth which works for him, but women in power seem hesitant to use their feminine charm in a man's world out of concern for appearing lightweight, manipulative, or needing to use it to make up for something that is lacking.
One of the most important aspects of an athlete's financial life is that he needs to be personally responsible for his own finances.
A leader who is confused or confusing causes too much anxiety, and a leader who is too controlling is revealing more insecurity and a lack of leadership.
Self-esteem should not be confused with self-confidence. Self-confidence is believing in your competence and your ability to do something, whereas self-esteem is believing in your goodness.
I know CEOs, and they get sick when they have to lay people off, especially around Christmas.
When you listen with memory, you have an old agenda, and when you listen with desire, you have a new one. You can't listen to the other person if your agenda is overtaking you.
The most influential people strive for genuine buy-in and commitment - they don't rely on compliance techniques that only secure short-term persuasion.
Forget the empty platitudes; your star employee is not a 'godsend.' They are a person deserving of your not infrequent acknowledgment and worthy of appreciation and respect.
Presence is in the eye and ear and gut of the beholder. When you are totally present in a conversation or in a meeting, others around you perceive you as totally focused on the matter at hand and on being of value to them.
You can't create more jobs for an economy where the vast majority of people are hesitant and even afraid to spend and buy.
There is something calming and emotionally restoring when you focus on gratitude for a known deed that helped you, instead of fear of the unknown.
Be it terrorists or 'blinded by greed' capitalists or 'deaf and dumb and siloed' officials, special interests will always tyrannize the common good.
Denial is not always a bad thing. Without it, you couldn't function. For instance, if you were hyperaware and hypervigilant regarding all the dangers in the world - from driving your car to crossing the street to eating food that might have contaminants in it to taking medications that have many side effects, etc. - you would become frozen.
Feeling alone makes negative feelings worse. When you feel alone, frustration quickly can become anger, fear quickly can become panic.
To many in the global community, American business - especially our financial institutions - are seen as a bunch of thieves, and as the saying goes, 'There's no honor among thieves.'
I have heard it said that the measure of a civilization is how it treats those who have hurt it. I think a further measure is how it treats those who deeply disappoint it.
If, during childhood, you were fortunate to have a parent who drilled into you, 'You can be anything you want to be if you try hard enough at it,' and then supported you in actions, that is something you take with you all your life.
I am blessed to count among my friends and colleagues people who are very thoughtful and who deeply care about our country.
Do not go out first thing after signing a contract and buy assets that are huge compared to the contract signed. Just because you have money for the first time doesn't mean you have to spend it before you know all the ramifications of buying the assets.
Leadership is more about clarity than it is about control.
Sadly, most labor attorneys will advise you not to say you're wrong to anyone, because that might lead them to have something they can use to sue you.
Women work and feel like they have to take care of so many details. Sometimes they don't get much help from their husbands.
Why do people who consider themselves good communicators often fail to actually hear each other? Often it's due to a mismatch of styles: To someone who prefers to vent, someone who prefers to explain seems patronizing; explainers experience venters as volatile.
There will always be people who think that money and benefits and even just having a job should be thanks enough. There are also those that think they do a great job without anyone having to thank them. But study after study has shown that no one is immune from the motivating effects of acknowledgement and thanks.
In my line of work, I frequently communicate with CEOs and their executive assistants, and nowhere is the need for gratitude more clear.
When winning is everything and everyone does whatever they need to win and to not lose, including lying, you have a world in which 'basic trust' is lost.
In my life, I think I have had more than two hundred significant breakthroughs that exponentially accelerated my life forward. However, each and every one of them was preceded by a breakdown that was not pretty, was often scary, and often felt like something I would not get past.
Being alone with fear can rapidly turn into panic. Being alone with frustration can rapidly turn into anger. Being alone with disappointment can rapid turn into discouragement and, even worse, despair.
Terrorism thrives when the gap between the 'haves' and 'have nots' becomes so wide and when the 'have nots' reach the point of such desperation, pain, and agony that they have nothing to lose.
When you are continuing to be in debt or are going deeper into it, every time a creditor calls, it rubs your face not only in how vulnerable you are, but that people are out to get something from you that you don't have to give.
Connecting is always better than disconnecting.
Is it possible that the collective global psyche of the world is like an overloaded modem and can no longer meaningfully communicate, comprehend, or listen to anything or anyone else?
The amygdala is like a point guard in the emotional part of your middle brain. When it is overwhelmed, it hijacks you away from being able to access your upper rational brain and think and assess what to do. It essentially disables your ability to think.
One of the most important keys to getting through to anyone and then influencing them is to realize that inside everyone's mind, they listen to someone or something.
Just like the athlete who has mapped out a plan to become one of the best athletes in the world by putting together a training program and executing it, he too should map out a financial plan from the beginning of his athletic career throughout every stage of his career.
When as smart as you think you are is as wrong as you turn out to be, your life can fall out from under you.
Self-esteem is crucial to how much or how little contentment you feel at the end of your life.
The crux is this: you can't be sincerely empathic towards and angry at someone at the same moment. In other words, you can't walk in someone else's shoes and step on their toes at the same time.
Very often, when you get into a conversation that's more of a debate, you'll pick up that the other person is venting at you. And when someone vents at you, it triggers a reaction. You get defensive and vent back.
Show people a positive path that enables them to make progress on their own terms. Give them options and alternatives that empower them.
Yes, CEOs are under pressure from all sides, and executives have all sorts of people pushing and pulling at them. But too often, they begin to view and treat their teams, and especially their assistants, as appliances. And a good assistant knows that the last thing their boss wants to hear from them is a personal complaint about anything.
