More on Tolerance - The Rewards of Diversity

Tolerance isn’t always so easy. Humanity is diverse. When you think of all the ways a person can be different—personality, culture, education, life experience, religion, economic status, skills, knowledge, values, attitudes, interests, relationships—it seems obvious that no two people on the planet are alike, and some people can be radically different from you. When someone doesn’t think like you or act like you, it can be hard to communicate and connect. The other person will do things that surprise you and even shock you. You’ll find that you disagree about a lot of things. It could be hard to like or respect such a person. You’d probably rather spend time with someone more like you.

Years ago I used to consult with a group of trainers. I had expertise in the area of creative problem solving, and they were teaching a week-long course on that topic. From time to time I would go to their facility to help them with their program.

It was always strange because all five people in that group were unlike me in the same way. Each of them was creative, spontaneous, playful, outgoing and values-directed. They had wonderful charisma, a great asset for presenting training. I, on the other hand, am logical, intellectual, serious, realistic, and goal-directed. For them, each day was a kind of party, and it was a stretch for me to fit in with that group. They valued my participation because I evaluated their program, got things organized and kept them on schedule. I also taught the sessions on decision-making, a topic they didn’t enjoy.

In short, we tolerated, valued and made use of our differences. But I often thought it would be wise if they hired team members with more diversity, instead of favoring people so much like themselves, with whom they connected so magically.

I think the lesson of tolerance goes something like this. Most people aren’t like you at all. That’s the good news, not the bad news. It’s good news because you are not all things. You have your strengths, but you aren’t strong in all areas. You know a lot, but you certainly don’t know everything. You have your focus and your individuality. And you want to be appreciated and valued for that. You want your talents to be well used.

People who aren’t like you feel the same way. They have a lot to contribute, and you can be the beneficiary if you do two hard things.

One, get acquainted with these people. Hire them. Learn how to team with them. Spend more time with them, even though it would be easier and less of a challenge to hang out with your own kind.

Two, tolerate them. Actually, go beyond toleration. As you learn more about them, appreciate their good and strong qualities. Value them. Affirm them. Make use of them. It will be a stretch, but making your life experience more diverse will enrich you and complete you.

More on Tolerance...

"Tolerance - The Key to a More Complete Life"

"Saved Again by Humility, Tolerance and Forgiveness"

"Black Holes - We Create Order out of Chaos"

"The Personal Strength of Tolerance - The Over-the-Top Extravert"

A Fortune Cookie...

Welcome all the many colors, and your world will be a work of art.

More Fortune Cookies...

The story behind the Fortune Cookies...

Post by Dennis E. Coates, Ph.D., Copyright 2010. Building Personal Strength . (License to use photo purchased from istockphoto.com)

There's No Quick Fix - Ingraining a New Skill or Habit Takes Time

Say you're at work and you’re really busy and someone comes up to you and says, “Hey, you got a minute? You need to hear this.”

You say, “Can it wait?” But she says it’s important, so you try to listen while you continue working.

In a busy workplace, people react out of habit. They don’t think, “What’s the best way to handle this?” They just handle situations the way they usually do. Hopefully, their habitual way of doing things is effective.

But multi-tasking is an awful way to listen. If you want to listen well nearly every time, you need to make effective listening practices your habit.

And you can't change your way of listening by reading a book about it or by watching a video. You have to do it right over and over until it becomes a habit.

Here’s an example from my own life of what it takes to ingrain a new behavior pattern. I love to swim for exercise and health. One day I was in the pool swimming laps, and when I got to the end of one of the laps this guy was standing there with a whistle around his neck. He said, “Hey! Let me give you a tip. When you bring your arm over, don’t slap the water. Reach out and gently put it in the water and extend it all the way. That way you’ll pull more water back and you’ll move through the water easier.”

That made sense to me. So for the rest of my swim, I tried to do what he said. But it was awkward. I did another 15 laps, concentrating on the technique. That’s a lot of strokes, but at the end of the swim, I still didn’t feel comfortable. But I believed him, so I persisted. At some point a few months later, it dawned on me that I was doing it right without thinking about it. It just felt natural.

Why did it take so long to ingrain the new technique?

The answer is that to establish the new behavior pattern, I had to rewire my brain.

Everything you do is directed by your brain. On the one hand, you can do something based on conscious analysis and decision-making.

Or, you can do it simply because that’s how you do it. To react automatically like that, you need to have all the brain cells involved in that action already wired together. If they’re not interconnected, then you consciously have to direct yourself to perform the correct behavior.

Every skill, habit or behavior pattern requires a special neural pathway. It’s a lot like hard-wiring in a device. If you do something repeatedly, the brain cells involved will be stimulated to grow tiny filaments called dendrites. With enough repetition, the dendrites will grow until they connect with the other related brain cells. When they’re all interconnected, your brain will have the physical circuit that enables the behavior, quickly and efficiently. The new behavior will become a habit.

How long does this take? The process is driven by repetitions of the behavior. So how long depends on how many times you apply the skill in your work or life. If you’re committed and you do it five or six times a day, the ingraining process will happen faster, maybe in a month or so. If you remember to do it every ten days, and if you make mistakes and learn from them, that’s learning, too. But it’s going to take you quite a bit longer to make the skill a habit in your work.

I know this from personal experience. Even though I have expert knowledge in people skills, several years ago my team complained about the way I listen. Though I struggled with their feedback, I eventually improved my listening skills. But it took me nearly two years before I was doing it right without thinking about it.

The good news is that you can make any life skill your own. But ingraining the skill will take lots of application in the workplace—the equivalent of swimming hundreds of laps. This phase of learning has to happen in the real world, not in the classroom.

There's no getting around it. You gotta do the work.

This article is based on my interview with Meredith Bell on this topic. Would you like to watch the video clip?

Post by Dennis E. Coates, Ph.D., Copyright 2010. Building Personal Strength . (License to use image purchased from istockphoto.com)

A Full Moon Thought - Every Day Is Precious

Recently Kathleen's parents visited from Waco. They looked good, considering they're in their mid-80s. Even so, it was hard not to notice the infirmities of aging. According to her dad, being old sucks.

I'm sure it does. No more water-skiing. No more camping and fishing in Colorado. No more boating. No more driving. No more gardening. No more helping friends with home repairs. No more walking the dog.

I sometimes wonder how being in my 80s will suck for me.

I was having such thoughts one evening as we returned home from town. It was the first day of autumn and a full moon hung low and huge in the sky. I was wondering how many times in my life I had seen the full moon. And how many more full moons I have left.

To get real, I sometimes run the numbers. A quick calculation told me that I've already lived nearly 24,000 days. If I live to be 90, as both my grandfathers did, I will have lived about 33,000 days. That leaves only 9,000 more days left to me. That means I have about 320 full moons left. A month from now, it will be only 319.

And that's if accident, disease or something worse doesn't get me first. I have good genes, and I take pretty good care of myself, but who knows what could happen? Who knows what surprises are in store for me? One surprise I've already ruled out. Scientists won't figure out how to end aging in my lifetime. I know they're working feverishly on it as I write, but this monumental feat of science is for coming generations, not mine.

Time is precious. While it's always been true that I don't have an infinite number of days left, at my age the realities of aging are more real to me. I'm sure that to Kathleen's dad, they're a lot more real than they are for me.

I've found that thoughts like these lead to right actions. They make me want to do the things that mean the most to me, to be productive and appreciate my life, to be sure I make the most of every single day.

There's precious little time for wrong careers, wrong jobs, wrong priorities, wrong relationships. I know lots of people who live their lives on automatic pilot, letting other people tell them what to do and how to act, wasting one day after another on meaningless nonsense.

I know it's hard for young people to "get real." And to many people, entertaining mortal thoughts may seem morbid. Why spoil the fun? What's the point, if people end up feeling gloomy?

True. But what's the point if at the end of one's days a life doesn't add up to something valuable? What if all of it seems like one big, boring afternoon? What's the point if you end up wasting your life?

A Fortune Cookie...

Live this day as if it's your last, and you will spend it well.

More Fortune Cookies...

The story behind the Fortune Cookies...

Post by Dennis E. Coates, Ph.D., Copyright 2010. Building Personal Strength . (Moon photo used with permission from Wikipedia, GNU Free Documentation License)

Open Your Mind - Let New Knowledge Come Rushing In

As the saying goes, the more you learn, the more you realize what you don't know. I know this has been true in my life. It's humbling.

But some people act as if they have all the answers. They have fixed opinions about things, and they fall on their sword defending them.

They're in big trouble.

The truth is, every person you'll ever meet comes from a different background of learning, and they know things you don’t know. If you want to get smarter as you go through life, and if you want your decisions to be based on the best information and wisdom, ask the people around you what they think, listen to what they say, and keep an open mind.

It’s not easy to accept another person’s point of view, even if it’s better than your own. For one thing, you may not understand it at first. The person may not express himself very well, and because it’s a different perspective, you may find it difficult to grasp. Besides, what you hear may contradict what you already believe. If that belief means a lot to you, you may not want to hear something that challenges it.

Learning is a life-long adventure. We learn from experience, and we learn from each other. If you want to expand your knowledge, you need to be willing to examine other people’s opinions. Even if you usually stay with what you believe, every now and then you’ll discover a new point of view that’s more useful than the one you hold now.

You have astounding potential for growth, and you can expand your horizon as far as you want. So instead of avoiding people who disagree with you, seek them out. When they speak, don’t give in to the impulse to argue. Learning isn’t about proving that you’re right. It’s about discovering something new. Listen carefully, get clarification and ask for more information.

Open your mind, and new knowledge will come rushing in.

You don’t have to accept everything you hear, but you can hear the person out and then decide if it’s worth considering.

Some wisdom...

“Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.” - George Bernard Shaw, British playwright (1856-1950)

“In the choice between changing one’s mind and proving there's no need to do so, most people get busy on the proof.” - John Kenneth Galbraith, American columnist (1908-2006)

“Nature has given us two ears, two eyes, and but one tongue - to the end that we should hear and see more than we speak.” - Socrates, Greek philosopher (B.C. 469-399)

“It is never too late to give up our prejudices.” - Henry David Thoreau, American philosopher (1817-1862)

“Loyalty to a petrified opinion never yet broke a chain or freed a human soul.” - Mark Twain, American novelist (1835-1910)

“We should not only use the brains we have, but all that we can borrow.” - Woodrow Wilson, American president (1856-1924)

“When learning about life and people, make no more assumptions than are absolutely necessary. Ask and observe.” - William of Occam, British philosopher (1285-1349)

“Old paradigms die hard, even if they don’t work.” - Karl Albrecht, American author (1941- )

“From a worldly point of view, there is no mistake so great as that of always being right.” - Samuel Butler, British novelist (1835-1902)

“We are complacently caught in our particular view of the world, which compels us to feel and act as if we knew everything about the world.” - Carlos Castaneda, American author (1926-1998)

Post by Dennis E. Coates, Ph.D., Copyright 2010. Building Personal Strength . (License to use photo purchased from istockphoto.com)

Tolerance - The Key to a More Complete Life

The other day my wife, Kathleen, asked me: “I got an email from a gardening blog buddy who lives only a few miles from here. He has a well-written blog, and he’s invited both of us to see his garden Thursday evening. Is that all right with you?”

My first thought was, Heavens no, I don’t want to spend an hour walking around some guy’s garden. I don’t care how cool his blog is. I’m sure he’s done interesting things in his garden, but I have other things I’d rather do.

But my next thought was, if I never stretched out of my comfort zone, I’d read and write all the time, with an occasional movie or sports event on the side. Thanks to Kathleen, who is very different from me, my life is much richer.

So I smiled and said, “Sure. That’ll be fine.”

That evening we spent the better part of an hour walking through this fellow’s garden. It was interesting to see how a different mind does different things with the same challenges we face. Also, it turned out he had a Ph.D. in English and was the most interesting man I’ve met since we arrived in the Hill Country four years ago.

And that’s how it goes being married to Kathleen. We share a lot of things in common. We have identical worldviews, and we share a love of the arts, literature and writing. Also, we have our differences. She needs an active social life. I need peace and quiet and time to myself. She has a practically endless desire to learn more about earthly delights: birds, butterflies, flowers, trees, fish, food and wine. I’m more of a philosopher. My life expands when she pulls me into her world, and her life expands when I share my ideas and sense of order.

This sort of flies in the face of highly publicized dating services like eHarmony that use personality assessments to help you find someone who is a lot like you. They believe it will increase the chances that you’ll get along. The problem is, in the long haul you need more in a relationship than another version of yourself.

I’ll tell you this, if I had to live with someone like me, there would be few conflicts, but we’d be dead in the water. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life with someone who has the same limitations that I do.

To me, the smart money is to establish relationships with people with whom you have common ground, but who aren’t like you in many ways. Then refuse to be annoyed by the differences. Instead, tolerate them and accept them for what they are—unique, valuable ways of being. Affirm the differences, celebrate them, and make use of them. If you open your mind and heart when you’re with people who aren’t like you, they’ll share insights, answers and solutions you’d never consider on your own. They’ll introduce you to joys in life that would otherwise be lost to you.

They’ll help make you a whole person.

Post by Dennis E. Coates, Ph.D., Copyright 2010. Building Personal Strength . (Photo by Denny Coates)

Learn from Experience with 5 Magic Questions -

Learning Fact No. 1 - People learn best from experience.

Learning Fact No. 2 - People don't always learn from their experiences.

In other words, living a busy, rich, interesting life doesn't guarantee that you'll end up wiser for it.

So what can you do? There's so much to be learned from life's experiences - the best learning of all. What can you do to make sure the learning happens?

The answer is that you have to think about what happens to you.

In this video, which is Part 6 in an 8-segment series of interviews with Meredith Bell, I explain a simple thought process that derives the lessons of experience better than any way I know...




You can facilitate your own learning by asking yourself the "5 Magic Questions." Or you can coach others by asking them the questions...and trusting them to come up with the answers!

In case you missed the first 5 videos in the series...

#1 - 4 Vital Things Every Leader Must Do

#2 - Why People Usually DON'T Give Their Best Effort

#3 - Leader Skills Are NOT Enough

#4 - Leaders Learn Best ON THE JOB, Not in the Classroom

#5 - Leadership Habits Take Time to Ingrain

Post by Dennis E. Coates, Ph.D., Copyright 2010. Building Personal Strength .

From "Knowing" to "Doing" - The Problem with Leadership Training

I once had the pleasure of training all the executives and middle managers of a city government in the basic skills of leadership. I worked hard to design a course that would introduce the basics and give them lots of practice. They loved the program. It was a very satisfying experience.

A couple years later, I returned to see how they were doing. What I learned is that nothing had changed. I was warmly greeted, as if I were an old friend. But they weren't doing what they had learned. I was surprised and disappointed.

Years later, I realized that the problem wasn't with my training. It was that instruction, even the best on planet Earth, isn't enough to change a work habit. People learn how to deal with each other over a lifetime, and the patterns are deeply ingrained. A two-week course isn't enough to change that.

I should have known better. I was introduced to my own listening and group facilitation skills in a six-week course back in 1976. Fortunately, I needed to put what I had learned into practice as soon as I got back. Over a year later, I started to feel comfortable with what I was doing. Without that long-term follow-up, I would never have mastered the skills.

So if you care about developing yourself as a leader, if you want more effective people skills, what should you do? What’s the best approach?

Many well-intentioned managers read books about leadership. There are hundreds in print right now. Many articles and videos are available on the topic, too. You’ll also find quite a few training programs, both online and on-site, and many are extremely well produced.

To help you navigate through all these resources, consider this: there’s a huge difference between KNOWING something and DOING something. In the end, what you know is far less important than what you do with the knowledge. When you’re with people, are you applying what you learned? If you don’t translate knowledge into action, it’s not of much use to you.

But doing what you've learned to do isn't so easy.

Practically speaking, the best books, videos and training programs do a couple things. First, they present a model of effective leadership skills—they show you what you should be doing on the job. The problem is, not all of them do that. They may contain a lot of good information about leadership principles. Hopefully, the treatment is interesting. You may get some self-awareness; it’s always good to know what your strengths and weaknesses are. But what you really need to know is what you should be doing to get the best effort from your people. So ideally, you learn about a model of how to act with people. If the resource doesn’t give you this, you’re probably wasting your time with it.

The problem is this: knowing what to do — having good models for effective leadership skills — is only the beginning.

A training course — even a two-week course, which is rare — isn’t enough to make you so comfortable with the best people skills that you wouldn’t hesitate to use them with people.

The reason is that these courses have a lot of topics to cover and there’s not much time for in-class practice. It takes time to ingrain a skill to the point where you’ll instinctively use it in the real world of work. That’s because the brain cells involved in the skill have to grow connections and form a network that makes the skill efficient and comfortable. If you apply what you learned over and over again, the brain cells will be stimulated to grow, connect and rewire your brain for the skill.

How long? That depends on how many times you apply it. The idea is to make an effective leadership skill a work habit, and that could take months, or as long as a year.

The bottom line - this crucial reinforcement phase cannot take place in the classroom with an instructor. A manager has to facilitate her own learning and development in the real world of work, every day.

That’s how you develop any habit, a skill, or a behavior pattern. There’s no shortcut. You have to do the work. And the only place this can happen is on the job.

When it comes to developing effective leadership skills, experience really is the best teacher. A smart manager takes cues from her interactions with people. For example, someone might say, “I don’t like it when you talk to me that way.” Or something might go wrong in her group. She may be trying things and they’re not working. Each of these instances is an experience from which she can learn.

So when you pick up suggestions about what to do as a leader, try them and learn from the experiences. If you do this, day after day, year after year, you’re going to be involved in the best kind of leadership development program there is.

This article is based on my interview with Meredith Bell on this topic. Would you like to watch the video clip?

Post by Dennis E. Coates, Ph.D., Copyright 2010. Building Personal Strength .

Dr. Thomas Gordon - A Credo for Relationships

The first book I ever read about people skills was Dr. Thomas Gordon's 1970 book P.E.T., which stands for Parent Effectiveness Training. In 1978, he published L.E.T. (Leader Effectiveness Training).

Everything he said over 30 years ago remains valid and useful today, even though dozens of books have been written about people skills since. At the core of all his courses and books is what he called his "Credo" for relationships. It brilliantly summarizes the assumptions that underlie effective human relations. Taken from the book, L.E.T., it's worth repeating here.

You and I are in a relationship which I value and want to keep. Yet each of us is a separate person with unique needs and the right to meet those needs.

When you are having problems meeting your needs, I will try to listen with genuine acceptance. In order to facilitate your finding your own solutions instead of depending on mine, I also will try to respect your right to choose your own beliefs and develop your own values, different though they may be from mine.

However, when your behavior interferes with what I must do to get my own needs met, I will tell you openly and honestly how your behavior affects me, trusting that you respect my needs and feelings enough to try to change the behavior that is unacceptable to me. Also, whenever some behavior of mine is unacceptable to you, I hope you will tell me openly and honestly so I can try to change my behavior.

At those times when we find that either of us cannot change to meet the other's needs, let us acknowledge that we have a conflict and commit ourselves to resolve each conflict without either of us resorting to the use of power or authority to win at the expense of the other's losing. I respect your needs, but I also must respect my own. So let us always strive to search for a solution that will be acceptable to both of us. Your needs will be met, and so will mine - neither will lose, both will win.

In this way, you can continue to develop as a person through satisfying your needs, and so can I. Thus, ours can be a healthy relationship in which both of us can strive to become what we are capable of being. And we can continue to relate to each other with mutual respect, love, and peace.

Imagine how wonderful it would be for this credo to become the foundation for a marriage, a parent-child relationship, a friendship, a co-worker relationship...

Dr. Gordon passed away in 2002. If you're interested in being more effective in relationships, his books are still in print, and I enthusiastically encourage you to check them out. (Disclaimer - I have no affiliate connection with Dr. Gordon's organization or the publisher and receive no compensation for endorsing his books.)

Post by Dennis E. Coates, Ph.D., Copyright 2010. Building Personal Strength .

Leadership Fable - The Goose That Laid the Golden Egg

Do you remember Aesop's fable about the goose that laid the golden eggs? It goes like this...

A man and his wife had the good fortune to possess a goose that laid a golden egg every day. Lucky though they were, they soon began to think they were not getting rich fast enough, and, imagining that the bird must be made of gold inside, they decided to kill it. Then, they thought, they could obtain the whole store of precious metal at once. However, upon cutting the goose open, they found its innards to be like that of any other goose. Moral: Greed destroys the source of good.

Every time I remember this fable, I think of how it applies to business and how managers should treat people so they perform at their best. But I always feel the desire to retell it in my own words. So I decided to create a modern, updated "remake"...

A man and his wife had a farm. They had a flock of geese and made a business bringing the eggs to town each day and selling them. The couple was known locally as "Mom and Pop."
Two of the geese were unusually well-tempered and the couple gave them extra affection and food. One day, the two favored geese surprised the couple by laying golden eggs.

Mom and Pop were so delighted that they praised the two geese lavishly and rewarded them with even more affection and food. All this attention resulted in two more golden eggs the next day.

The couple began to dream of riches. What if they could get all the geese to lay golden eggs? So they admonished and cajoled the whole flock to follow the example of the two prized geese.

The next day, no golden eggs were produced. Alarmed, the couple lectured the geese about their duty to perform and warned of reduced rations if they didn't produce the gold.

The following day, fewer eggs were produced than ever, and none of them were made of gold. Worried that their future fortune was in jeopardy, the couple stormed through the flock with a broom, shouting at them and threatening them.

When Mom and Pop went to check for produce the next morning, they saw that all the geese were gone.

Moral: A mistreated goose will not lay a golden egg. Know the true source of your profit, and nourish it rather than exploiting it. 

Another take on it: You, too, can lay golden eggs. Nurture yourself, because the ultimate source of your success is within you.

This is why we named our weekly ezine Golden Eggs. It perfectly symbolizes our desire to help you nourish and strengthen yourself. After over 40 issues, we have quite a loyal readership! If you'd like to try it, you can sign up at the top of this page.

Or just click here.

Post by Dennis E. Coates, Ph.D., Copyright 2010. Building Personal Strength .

Loyalty - Be There for the People You Care About

When our home in Vero Beach, Florida, was hit by Hurricane Frances in 2004, we were without power in hot, humid weather for over ten days. We spent every one of those days cleaning up our property. When our friends ten miles north of us got their power back in a couple days, they asked us to stay with them. Even though it meant extra effort and some loss of privacy, they were gracious for more than a week. So during that time, we could take hot showers at the end of the day and sleep in an air-conditioned bedroom. It was an act of true friendship.

In relationships, people depend on each other to be there during the hard times as well as the good times. People will consistently come through for you if they know you, like you and trust you. They’ll be loyal to you because you're loyal to them.

You’re loyal when you show how important the people you care about are by giving them priority over other things. You don’t do things at their expense.

When people you care about are going through difficult times, it can be a real challenge to devote the energy and resources to truly support them. You’ve probably got your own problems to deal with, and you may not be sure what other people need from you.

In situations like this, you can make a conscious choice to be true to your relationships. Whether it’s family, friends or work associates, if you’re genuinely concerned about their welfare, you’ll “be there” for them and even go the extra mile. You’d want them to do the same for you.

There’s an obvious benefit to others when you make them a high priority. The benefit to you when you’re loyal to a relationship is that they trust you.

You already know how to be loyal. Just remember what will happen if you aren’t. You want people to know they can count on you to come through for them even in the toughest of circumstances.

A Fortune Cookie...

Be there for those you care about, and you'll never be alone.

More Fortune Cookies...

The story behind the Fortune Cookies...


Post by Dennis E. Coates, Ph.D., Copyright 2010. Building Personal Strength .

Jack Canfield - Planning Your Day

Jack Canfield, co-author of the original Chicken Soup for the Soul, has a simple, practical tip for getting the most out of your day. What he suggests sounds obvious, but not many people do it.

Time is precious. When your time runs out, there'll never be any more of it for you. So you need to make the most of the time you have. And there's no way of knowing how much time that is. I believe Jack's tip could make a difference in your life.

Here's the brief video clip...



Other great videos from Jack...

The Success Principles

Optimism - Create Your Attitude

...and best wishes for your health, strength and prosperity!

Post by Dennis E. Coates, Ph.D., Copyright 2010. Building Personal Strength .

After the Storm - Leaks and Acts of Generosity

About a week ago we had some welcome rain, about 8 inches while Tropical Storm Hermine passed by. 

During the night, the rain produced a dripping sound. Somehow the alert part of my brain - the part that protects me while I'm sleeping - cross-referenced the sound and concluded that it was too loud to be the sound of rain hitting the roof. I felt the jolt of adrenalin and bounded out of bed. It seemed to be happening in the fireplace enclosure on the other side of our bedroom wall. 

Then I noticed that the carpet was wet there. Water behind the dry wall and in the carpet means the danger of mold and mildew, which can be grow like a cancer and kill a home.

I knew Kathleen wouldn't want to sleep through all this excitement, so I awakened her. Before long I was in the attic and then on the roof checking for leaks. A good time was not had by all. I never made it back to sleep that night.

The next day we got some for recommendations for roofers, and miraculously one came to our home before noon, a gentleman named Santiago. We went up on the roof and he showed me where the caulking had eroded, causing the leak. His fix seemed logical and on-target. And best of all, he didn't recommend ripping out and replacing all the old flashing around the chimney, which would have been an expensive job.

He redid the caulking, installed a collar to cover the seal, and added a barrier of flashing on the high side of the chimney. He did all this himself in about an hour.

It was such a pleasant, non-exploitative project that when it came time to write the check, I did something I've never done with a contractor. I added a 20% tip. 

Apparently he was surprised by this generosity. Before he left, he said he had some flashing left over, and it would only take a few minutes to install a barrier to keep rain from dripping on our air conditioners. He didn't want payment for this. I think his sense of quality service and fair payment caused him to want to do more work for the extra money I gave him.

As he drove away, I thought about the truth that underlies the idea of karma. Trust people and they they will trust you back. Give kindness and it will be returned to you. Be generous and people will find ways to share what they have with you.

Post by Dennis E. Coates, Ph.D., Copyright 2010. Building Personal Strength . (Permission to use photo purchased from istockphoto.com)

People Skills and Personal Strengths - The Core of A Leader's Effectiveness

Back when I did management consulting, I was often asked to help managers become better leaders. As I got to know the managers, I saw that some of them already had quite a bit of leadership ability. Others had very little.

The question was, what would it take for them to improve?

First, they would have to be good with people. This isn't simply a matter of personality. There are quite a few interpersonal skills—people skills. To name a few: listening, accepting feedback, giving feedback and resolving conflict. These are things you do with people. Skills are involved, and you can learn them.

Also, the people skills would take them only so far. They would need something else. A lot of people say, “It’s not just what you can do, it’s who you are.” I talk about this as “personal strength”—behavior patterns such as honesty, integrity, compassion, composure, perseverance, initiative and dozens more. Some people refer to this behavior as “character,” “heart” or “grit.” I don’t think of them as passive traits, attributes or qualities. They aren’t real at all until you manifest them in your behavior with people.

People are able to demonstrate personal strengths basically for one reason - it’s their habit to do so. It’s their way of acting with people.

Personal strengths are similar to leadership skills in that they are behavior patterns. Throughout your life, you learn to operate a certain way in a particular situation. When you listen, you do it a certain way. Or, say you have to deal with a crisis. If you take responsibility and tell the truth, it’s because that’s your way of behaving in that kind of situation.

I call these behavior patterns personal strengths because manifesting them in everyday behavior is hard to do. You aren’t born with these patterns. Throughout a lifetime, people learn to act a certain way in a certain situation.

The good news is that people skills and personal strengths can be learned or improved. Every individual is at a different stage along the path of personal development. People will be strong in some skills or strengths, and there will be areas they need to work on. They may find it easy to act with honesty and integrity, because they’ve always acted that way. But maybe it’s not so easy to take a risk. Or maybe they have trouble staying calm, cool and collected when the world’s on fire around them.

So if you’re someone who’s in charge of others, you should make the best use of your strengths, and you should probably always be working on some aspect of leadership. How do you know when you’ve “arrived,” when you can stop working on getting stronger as a leader?

I don’t think you ever arrive at the end of this learning journey. How good a listener can you be? How patient can you be? How compassionate? It’s like asking a golfer how good a golfer can he be? How good can a musician be? Would someone striving for excellence say, “I’m finally at the end of my learning. I’m as good at this as I can possibly be.” No, they achieve higher levels of excellence by continually striving to improve.

And that’s certainly not what a manager who wants to lead effectively would say. If you want to have effective leadership skills and personal strengths, you never stop improving. One reason is that there are dozens of people skills and dozens of personal strengths. No one can be strong in all of them. Mastery is a lifelong journey.

This journey begins when you’re in charge of your first group. You realize that getting the best work from people is hard. You make mistakes. But mistakes are one of the best ways to learn. Learn from the experience, learn from your feedback, learn from the coaching you get from more experienced managers. All these things can guide you. The learning happens when you actually try something different. You don’t have to wait for training to develop yourself as a leader.

Self-awareness is a big help. Listen to feedback. Take an honest look at yourself, and you’ll know what you should focus on next. And as you succeed as a leader, as you move up to accept more responsibilities, remember this: you can still continue your growth as a leader—one area at a time.

This article is based on my interview with Meredith Bell on this topic. Would you like to watch the video clip?

Post by Dennis E. Coates, Ph.D., Copyright 2010. Building Personal Strength .

Happiness Happens - Three "Best Evers" in 24 Hours

I recently posted an article on happiness. Last weekend, I was thinking about what I wrote, because I was feeling so happy.

Why? Because Kathleen and I happened to show up where extraordinary things were happening, where individuals obsessed with their passion had created something wonderful, things I care about. Three times.

The first momentous event happened in High's Café in downtown Comfort, Texas, where we stopped for lunch. I always order the chicken salad sandwich whenever I see it on the menu. It's as if I'm on a quest for the Holy Grail of chicken salad. My current best-in-the-world chicken salad sandwich is served at the Gristmill Restaurant in Gruene, Texas. They use smoked chicken and the sauce has dill and garlic. On a sourdough bun. It's so good I've never ordered anything else there.

High's chicken salad sandwich was way above average. It had large chicken chunks in a subtle cream sauce. Awfully damned good, but it wasn't "the best ever." The corn chowder used a chicken stock with a drizzle of home-made cilantro oil. Unique, special. The word "gourmet" came to mind. A real delight in such a small town.

I was so impressed I decided to have a dessert, something I almost never do. I selected the chocolate chip cookie. For diet and nutritional reasons, my policy is to avoid cookies. But I've always found it hard to resist a chocolate chip cookie. It's a weakness. I deal with it by never bringing them into the house. But I made an exception here, because, well, it was so huge and it looked so fresh. And it was there for the taking.

And oh my god, it was the best chocolate chip cookie I've ever tasted. After 65 years on the planet, I had found the best. It was perfectly soft and chewy and full of good things. Made right there in their kitchen. I was glad it was so large because I didn't want the experience to end. I was happy.

That evening we ate at the Alamo Springs Café, which is way up in the boonies miles from any town or other commercial establishment. We ate there for two reasons. First, it's only 500 feet from the entrance to the Old Tunnel Wildlife Management Area, where we saw millions of bats emerge at dusk. And we were hungry. The second reason is that folks we met in the Texas Hill Country kept telling us that we had to try their amazing burger. Supposedly Texas Monthly voted it the third best burger in Texas.

I love burgers. I always have. Burgers are a guilty pleasure. Normally I avoid eating them though, because...well, they're the exact opposite of healthy food. But if there is any possibility of experiencing a truly great burger, all bets are off and I place my order.

We met and talked with the owners about their celebrity status. They said that the day the article appeared they were overwhelmed by a desperate crowd of burger lovers. Five times as many people as they could handle showed up. They pounded on the windows. Some of them offered their fellow patrons over $100 for their place in line. It was crazy like this for days, and some of the staff were so burned out they quit.

By the time we showed up, things were sane again. You can custom order, so I asked for a burger with caramelized onions and avocado. When it arrived, the sight of it took me by surprise. It was over six inches high, and it rested on the perfect bun. When I mustered up the courage to take a bite, I was surprised again. I knew what was in it, but the result was more than the sum of its parts. My god, it was the best burger I had ever tasted in my life. By a long shot. Everything about it was perfect. The best ever. Happy, happy, happy.

The next morning we found ourselves at the Welfare Café in Welfare, Texas. Welfare is a very small town. I use the word "town" generously - maybe four or five families live there. Even though Interstate 10 has a huge green sign that heralds its presence - "Welfare - 1 Mile" - it's a tiny spot of civilization out in the middle of nowhere. The building was once a combo post office and train station, established by German immigrants over 150 years ago. The train tracks and the Germans are long gone, but the current owners restored the building and preserved as much memorabilia as they could, so the place has the feel of an eat-in museum.

I had a marinated duck breast open-faced sandwich with roasted potatoes. Sound special? It was. The whole menu was like that. It was like eating in a gourmet restaurant.

Kathleen wanted to try a dessert, so I asked for a strudel. Strudels are common in our part of Texas because of the German immigrant influence. I've lived in Germany three times in my life, and I know what authentic German strudel is. And so far I hadn't found it here. Which is disappointing.

Until I tasted this strudel. Wow. This was a strudel on steroids. The peaches and filling blended together into something that was more than just peaches and filling. I have no clue how she did it, but this made-right-here-in-our-kitchen strudel was better than any strudel I've ever tasted, here or in Germany or anywhere. Maybe they don't even have peach strudel in Germany. It was the best ever.

Three best-evers in one 24-hour period. Heading for this concentration of excellence 35 miles west of San Antonio, I had no idea this would happen. But it did. It's amazing and wonderful that so many people in this tiny segment of Texas care so much about what they are doing.

It makes me feel happy.

Post by Dennis E. Coates, Ph.D., Copyright 2010. Building Personal Strength . (Photos by Kathleen Scott. Used with permission.)

Leadership Habits Take Time to Ingrain

This is the fifth segment in a series in which Meredith Bell asks me some tough questions about leadership and leadership development. In this clip, she asks me how long it takes to develop a new leadership skill.

The answer is not what executives or the folks in Human Resources want to hear. When managers go off to a training course, when they come back people expect them to be "trained" and ready to implement what they learned.

It doesn't work that way. You don't replace a life-long way of doing things with a new way just by sitting in a classroom for three or four days. Back on the job and in the pressure of a busy workplace, a manager isn't going to react with one of the fine new techniques he learned. No, sir. He's going to do what's automatic and comfortable - his old way of doing things.

Habits are hard-wired in the neurons, enabled by physical neural pathways. The only way to replace the old dysfunctional work habit with an excellent new one is to grow a new neural pathway, which takes real work - hundreds of repetitions of the behavior. It's exactly like changing your golf swing. Good luck doing that after a couple sessions with the pro. No, you'll have to hit about a thousand golf balls the new way, just like everybody else.

Here's what I told Meredith...



In case you missed the first 4 videos in the series...

#1 - 4 Vital Things Every Leader Must Do

#2 - Why People Usually DON'T Give Their Best Effort

#3 - Leader Skills Are NOT Enough

#4 - Leaders Learn Best ON THE JOB, Not in the Classroom

Post by Dennis E. Coates, Ph.D., Copyright 2010. Building Personal Strength .

From Ron Wilson - A Thank-You Goes a Long Way

Recently, my friend Ron Wilson left a comment on my blog post. Not many people saw it, but it is so well written that I wanted all my followers to see it. Here it is, intact...

During the last 11 years of my legal career, I served as a senior level in-house lawyer and ultimately the General Counsel for a mid-sized corporation. Part of my job was to supervise a small group of in-house lawyers...a task, it's been said, is not unlike trying to herd cats. I fully agree with this often used simile.

I was fortunate throughout this 11-year period of my career to have one young lawyer on my staff, who may have been almost the perfect employee. She was a workhorse. To say I "supervised" her is a euphemism. All I had to do was give her the objective and parameters of a legal or administrative project and point her toward the deadline. She took it from there. She was intelligent; competent; professional; hard-working; practical; thorough; articulate; an effective writer; pro-active; task-oriented; committed to excellence; and honest. (Yes, I said "honest." Please no cynical lawyer jokes.) Plus, she never complained; almost always had a smile on her face; displayed a perpetual upbeat attitude; had a good sense of humor; and revealed a mature perspective on her work and her life. She and I even shared a couple of favorite sports teams and she and her husband liked many of the same kinds of movies that my wife and I enjoyed.

Over the years I came to deeply respect her and her work; I trusted her; and I relied on her to help me meet my General Counsel responsibilities. During annual performance reviews, I always gave her high ratings, with lots of specific examples of the excellence of her performance to support my glowing evaluations.

About three years before I retired, as part of an ongoing internal management workshop I was attending, I provided my employees with a series of written questions designed to give the supervisor feedback on his or her management skills and effectiveness. One of the questions was something like, "Describe one or two behaviors related to your manager's supervision of you that you think he or she could improve. Please be specific."

When I opened my "perfect" employee's comments and read her response to this question, my jaw dropped. All she wrote was, "I'd liked to be thanked more for my work." That was it. The law department's dependable workhorse, who always performed her tasks at a high level, with a smile on her face, and never complained. All she wanted from me was to be thanked more. Had I not always given her glowing performance ratings with regular pay increases? Wasn't that enough "thanks" for a job well done? Apparently not. I learned that all human beings, even non-complaining, professional workhorses want to be thanked for their hard work. Sure, highly rated performance reviews, pay raises, and promotions are appreciated, but every now and then, a simple and sincere "thank you" will go a long way.

After that learning experience I made it a point to look my employees in the eye and thank them when they did well -- at least as often as I critiqued them when they came up short. I don't have any metrics to prove it, but it seemed to me that the overall productivity of the lawyers in my law department went up during the last two years before I retired. I swear, I think my workhorse even got better.

Post by Dennis E. Coates, Ph.D., Copyright 2010. Building Personal Strength .

Two Miracles in One Night - The Personal Strength of Awareness

Not long ago, my conscious awareness was powerfully focused "in the moment" twice in one evening.

Kathleen and I were visiting the area of the Texas Hill Country about 35 miles west of San Antonio, near Comfort and Fredericksburg. Friday at sunset we were sitting in a small viewing area at the Old Tunnel Wildlife Management Area, where we were told that about 3 million Brazilian free-tailed bats would emerge at dusk.

They spend their days hanging from the ceiling of an abandoned railroad tunnel. Our guide said that typically 200 bats occupy one square foot of space. She also said that this was peak season for bat emergence viewing because summer breeding was over, and the pups would be emerging along with their parents.

Having never seen anything like this before, I didn't know what to expect. As the sky began to darken, I saw a few bats dart out, then dozens, then hundreds. Suddenly, more than 50,000 bats per minute were rocketing out of the tunnel, a torrential flow that lasted about forty-five minutes. The sound of the beating of so many wings was an audible roar.

Amazingly, the flow ran into the end of the clearing, where the bats spiraled counter-clockwise into a tornado of hundreds of thousands of bats slowly rising high enough to clear the trees and fly away.

Our guide said that before they returned at dawn the bats would consume about 50,000 pounds of insects. I'll bet the local farmers are saving a bundle by not having to pay for insecticide!

For me it was an unprecedented, this-worldly spiritual experience. It's a strange thing to feel a sustained sense of amazement for more than half an hour.

Back at our cottage, we stood on the back porch to watch the stars. It was a clear, moonless night, and we were many miles from the nearest town. I've never seen the Milky Way so clear. I'm now living the final third of my life, but this was the first time I've seen stars twinkling so vividly. They seemed so close I could reach out and touch them.

Nature is that way. Whether the miracle is something going on here on the surface of our planet or it's something happening untold light-years away, if you can stop your thoughts long enough to simply see it for what it is, it will leave you speechless.

Post by Dennis E. Coates, Ph.D., Copyright 2010. Building Personal Strength . (Photo by Nyta Brown, courtesy of Old Tunnel WMA)

Dr. Martin Seligman - The Three Blessings Exercise

I posted this video about a year ago, and many of my current Followers have never seen it. Because it's such a valuable exercise in optimism, I'm posting it again here now.

Marty, a former president of the American Psychological Association, author of the classic books Learned Optimism and Authentic Happiness, and founder of the Positive Psychology movement, is one of the most esteemed psychologists in the world. In this video, he explains the background for the "Three Blessing Exercise," one of many he's developed to help people become more resilient.

The exercise is simple. At the end of each day, think about the three things that happened that day that you are most happy about...and why they happened. In this brief video, he explains how this exercise works.



Though an older video, it's a treat to hear this from Marty himself. The Reflective Happiness website he refers to has changed, and I don't know enough about it to endorse it.

Here's to your everyday blessings!



Post by Dennis E. Coates, Ph.D., Copyright 2010. Building Personal Strength .

Leaders Learn Best ON THE JOB, Not in the Classroom

In one segment of an interview, Meredith Bell asked me "What's the best approach to take if you want to develop yourself as a leader to be effective with people?"

Creating books, videos and training programs for leadership development is a multi-billion dollar industry. But in my answer, I didn't focus in on the best of these resources. My answer may surprise you...



In case you missed the first 3 videos in the series...

#1 - 4 Vital Things Every Leader Must Do

#2 - Why People Usually DON'T Give Their Best Effort

#3 - Leader Skills Are NOT Enough

Post by Dennis E. Coates, Ph.D., Copyright 2010. Building Personal Strength .

Henry Ford - The Wisdom That Comes from Pursing a Great Vision

It seems to me that if you're the kind of person who can help create an industry - as Bill Gates, Walt Disney, Sam Walton, Malcolm S. Forbes and others have done - maybe you've learned a few things about what it takes to succeed in life. Maybe you have something to say.

Indeed, I have hundreds of quotes from well-known business leaders. And Henry Ford (1863-1947) is at the top of the list. He's the guy who invented the assembly line so he could mass produce automobiles. His vision was to make cars as cheaply as possible so that everyone could afford one. This forced him to innovate, and the end result was to revolutionize both transportation and American industry. His vision prevails today in the Ford Motor Company, one of the largest and most respected corporations in the world.

No, I don't own a Ford. I never have. But I have quite a few quotes by Henry Ford. Here are a dozen favorites...

On COOPERATION - “Coming together is a beginning. Keeping together is progress. Working together is success.”

On EFFORT - "Everything comes to him who hustles while he waits."

On EXCELLENCE - "Quality means doing it right when no one is looking."

On FAIRNESS - "It is all one to me if a man comes from Sing Sing Prison or Harvard. We hire a man, not his history."

On FORGIVENESS - “Don’t find fault. Find a remedy.”

On FRIENDSHIP - "My best friend is the one who brings out the best in me."

On INITIATIVE - "You can't build a reputation on what you are going to do."

On PASSION - "You can do anything if you have enthusiasm. Enthusiasm is the yeast that makes your hopes rise to the stars."

On PERSEVERANCE - “Failure is the opportunity to begin again more intelligently.”

On SELF-CONFIDENCE - “There isn’t a person anywhere who isn’t capable of doing more than he thinks he can.”

On SELF-DEVELOPMENT - “Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning stays young. The greatest thing in life is to keep your mind young.”

On SERVICE - "It's not the employer who pays the wages. Employers only handle the money. It's the customer who pays the wages."

Post by Dennis E. Coates, Ph.D., Copyright 2010. Building Personal Strength . (Photo from Library of Congress archives, in the public domain)

Leadership Lesson - Showing Up for Work Is NOT the Goal

Sheila had a “problem boss.” He never affirmed or praised the good things she did. Once she asked him, "Did you like the way we closed out that project?" His answer was, "Don't you have something useful you should be doing right now?"

Not only did he have poor people skills, he micro-managed. It was his way of making sure people did their jobs. And he got angry and made disparaging comments when things didn't go his way. Because of how he dealt with her, she never felt the desire to do what she was capable of doing.

Sheila and her husband Guy often talked about their bosses, because by contrast, Guy's boss gave him the responsibility, authority, freedom of action, and recognition he felt he deserved. He loved coming to work every day because he knew his boss believed in him. Even though Guy knew he could get by doing what was required, he admired and trusted his boss so much that he wanted to do his best for him.

And so it goes in the world of work. As a manager, if all you ever wanted was for people to come to work on time and do what’s required, you could just manage them the way you do anything else, such as funds, tools, equipment, supplies, etc. You wouldn’t need people skills.

But what most managers really want is for team members to do their best work—both individually and as a coordinated effort.

People have talent. They have energy. They have the potential to be creative. They can be bold, patient, persistent, and a lot of other things as they work through tough challenges.

But even if they’re capable of delivering this kind of effort, they don’t have to. There’s a certain level of performance - and they know what it is - that’s specified in their job description. To keep their jobs, that’s what they have to do. When the boss tells them to do something, that’s what they have to do.

The problem is that this level of effort is what managers recognize as “business as usual.” It’s not the kind of high performance team members are capable of. What managers want most are things that can’t be specified or measured: courage, compassion, commitment, composure, optimism, decisiveness, and dozens of other aspects of performance. You can’t demand these things and you can’t hold people accountable for them.

To get what you really want from people, you have to lead them. You have to grow them into the kind of team members who willingly do these things. And you have to inspire them. You have to support them and encourage them. Eventually, when they know the leader, like the leader, respect the leader and trust the leader, then they may choose to give that level of effort. And if they do, day in and day out, work will become very satisfying to them. And of course it will be satisfying to the manager.

That’s why people skills and personal strengths are so important. It’s not rocket science, but it’s the real reason why managers need to make the effort to become better leaders.

Post by Dennis E. Coates, Ph.D., Copyright 2010. Building Personal Strength .

Are You Strong Enough to Accept the Truth?

“You can’t handle the truth!” shouts Marine colonel Nathan Jessup (Jack Nicholson) in the 1992 movie, “A Few Good Men.” The outburst comes when Navy lieutenant Dan Kaffe (Tom Cruise) presses the colonel to reveal sordid facts that are crucial to a case.

Whenever I think about acceptance, that scene comes back to me. Because some truths are hard to accept. And yet we must accept them if we are to deal with them.

“God grant us the serenity to accept the things we cannot change, courage to change the things we can, and wisdom to know the difference.”

The well-known “Serenity Prayer” was adapted by Alcoholics Anonymous in 1942 from a sermon by theologian Reinhold Niebuhr. Acceptance is a crucial step to dealing with alcoholism. Only after people accept that they have an addiction can they overcome it. And yet, it’s a terrible thing to admit. Alcoholics deny their addiction and its effect on others so they don’t have to make the hard changes.

A good friend of mine once had a serious drinking problem. When drunk, he abused his wife and family. He started drinking early in the day and was no longer effective in his business. His wife was about to divorce him, and his partners were on the verge of leaving his company when as a group they decided to confront him. They told him that if he didn’t get help they wouldn’t stay with him.

It was a huge wake-up call. They presented him with reality, and he accepted it.

He went through several weeks of treatment, and he hasn’t had a drink for more than fifteen years. He’s a great friend, a loving husband and father, and a hardworking professional in his community. He still goes to AA meetings twice a week and recites the prayer. His life is a wonderful success story. He turned tragedy into triumph, and it began with acceptance.

Accept the awful truth, and it will stop haunting you.

The opposite of acceptance is denial.

In her 1969 book, On Death and Dying, Elisabeth Kübler-Ross describes grief as a five-stage process. Her premise is that acceptance is necessary for a healthy, life-affirming approach to dying. According to her, the journey begins with denial and ends in acceptance. The intermediate stages are anger, bargaining and depression. Some people take longer than others to achieve acceptance, and some never make it.

Of course dying and death are probably the toughest aspects of life to accept. But any unwanted situation can be hard to accept. The more unpleasant it is, the bigger the loss, the harder it can be to accept. Our reaction might be some variation of, “This can’t be happening to me.” We may have to work through denial, anger, bargaining and depression, but the sooner we can accept the facts, the sooner we can do something about them.

In 1994 my company introduced an innovative multi-source feedback system called 20/20 Insight. It was used by over a million people in virtually every kind of organization around the world, and it’s still in use today. In the spirit of “walking our talk,” we decided to use it in our own company to give each other feedback.

It was an enlightening process. We learned some new things about our product, and we learned some important things about ourselves. According to the feedback I received from my partners and employees, my lowest-rated performance area was “listening.” In a meeting, they affirmed this result.

To be honest, I was shocked. I was a trained listener. I had studied the best books about listening. I had trained countless managers myself and had written all our content on listening. I had been consciously practicing active listening for 20 years. My first thought was, “What they’re saying can’t be valid.” I was in denial.

However, I’m a realistic person, and I prefer to accept the way things are as quickly as possible. But I must say, I felt a little bit of anger, bargaining and depression before I finally acknowledged that I needed to work on being a better listener. I took their feedback seriously and made a dedicated effort to practice in my behavior what I knew in my head. After months of effort and a couple more rounds of feedback, I ultimately succeeded.

I’m a much better listener now.

Post by Dennis E. Coates, Ph.D., Copyright 2010. Building Personal Strength .

Honesty and Trust - The Foundation of Relationships

I know this fellow who's been a close friend of mine for over 40 years. In all that time, he's never lied to me. He's had his chances. I've asked him about some pretty embarrassing stuff, but he always tells it like it is with no thought to whether I might think less of him. As a result, I'm tremendously fond of him, and I trust him completely.

Honesty is essential to relationships. Ultimately people don't trust anyone who misrepresents the truth.

Telling the truth isn‘t always comfortable or easy. To avoid personal embarrassment, you may be tempted to change the story or leave out certain facts.

But if you misrepresent the truth or tell only a portion of the truth, you‘re concealing information from people who may need it. In life, people need to know how things really are so they can deal with issues and problems. People depend on you for accurate information. If you cover something up because it‘s embarrassing or damaging to you, you could be setting up the people you care about to fail.

The right thing to do is to be straightforward and take the heat. Besides, you can‘t hide a lie forever. Almost always, the facts come to light. If people find out you deceived them, they‘ll stop trusting you. And trust is the foundation of relationships.

You have the strength to face the facts — all of them. Even if they make you "look bad" at the time, it‘s better to give people what they need — the best possible information. Tell the truth no matter how embarrassing, and people will respect you for it.

A Fortune Cookie...

Shake hands with the truth, and she will make you stronger.

The story behind the Fortune Cookies...

More Fortune Cookies...

Post by Dennis E. Coates, Ph.D., Copyright 2010. Building Personal Strength .

Mountain Stream Relaxation Video

There's something something about the sound of running water in nature - a waterfall, a stream...

Use this video as a way to relax. Turn on your speakers, click the Full Screen icon in the bottom right corner. Sit back and just let your batteries recharge.

Bookmark it and return whenever you feel the need. Good stuff...




Post by Dennis E. Coates, Ph.D., Copyright 2010. Building Personal Strength .

One of the Big Questions - What is Happiness?

During the first half of my life, I spent a lot of time pondering the large questions, such as "Where did all this come from?" "Why am I here?" "What is the meaning of life?" and "What is happiness?"

As to the first question, I no longer expect an answer. I am content to simply gaze upon the universe in awe and to consider any new information that comes from those who make it their business to study the universe. 

As to the other questions, there are hundreds of answers to choose from, so each individual needs to decide for himself. And by now, I have.

My favorite book on happiness is by a colleague of mine, Marty Seligman, one of the wisest people I've ever met. A former president of the American Psychological Association, he's been called "the father of positive psychology." In his book, Authentic Happiness, he says, "Authentic happiness comes from identifying and cultivating your most fundamental strengths and using them every day in work, love, play, and parenting."

I'm sure that's true. But that's a little lofty for me. I like my answers to be something a little more down-to-earth.

An important insight for me is that Happiness isn't something I achieve. There's no journey that moves towards and finally arrives at a state of being called Happiness.

Instead, it's a feeling I sometimes have. At any given moment on any given day, I can feel happy. And I just love it when that happens. I'll take another portion of that, please.

Another important thing I've learned is that what makes me feel happy is when I get something I want or need. It's a feeling of satisfaction or fulfillment. The more good things that happen to me, the happier I feel.

Some other conclusions about happiness:

1. I can make things happen that please me or fulfill me. As the saying goes, "Good days don't just happen, you make them happen."

2. It's up to me to feel pleased or fulfilled. Something good might happen, but I might not appreciate how wonderful it is, which would prevent me from feeling elated about it. I might fail to notice it or I might perceive it as ordinary or negative. In other words, I need the right attitude. What I think about what is happening is crucial.

In my neighborhood in the Texas Hill Country, we have a family of roadrunners, some of the coolest birds in the world. If I see them cross the street, I could appreciate their uniqueness and beauty and it will help make my day. Or I could think ho-hum and just look away.

3. When I'm depressed, which is rare, it's hard to feel happy. When I've suffered a big loss or am dealing with a major crisis, it's as if the scales are tipped on the side of unhappiness. Of course, there's a difference between psychological depression, which passes when the loss or issues are worked out, and chronic depression, which is caused by an imbalance of neurotransmitters - brain chemicals. For people who suffer from chronic depression, drugs are their only hope. With the right cocktail and a positive attitude, they can make good days happen again.

4. What produces happiness is different with each person. What quacks my duck? Stuff like this...

• SCUBA diving - being underwater with the fishies.
• All forms of nature, including rain, clouds, the night sky, birds, etc. The whole bit.
• Having success in my business.
• Being with friends and family.
• The Duke men's basketball winning a game on any given night.
• Lying in my wife's arms.
• Eating any food she has cooked for me.
• Reading a good book and learning something new.
• Watching a well-made movie that reveals something about life.
• Being productive - getting a lot of things done in a day.
• Health - no serious illness, ailment or injury. And the health of the people I care about.
• A lack of financial problems.
• Being at home with my wife, my cats and my stuff.
• Having a good workout at my gym, especially if I get to swim laps.

And probably hundreds of other things. Things that tip the scales to the side of feeling glad, satisfied, and fulfilled.

The bottom line to this is that making a good day happen isn't always so easy. To tip those scales to the positive side, I have to work at it. But I think the door to feeling happy opens wide when I value the good things, when I show up for the miracle and appreciate that it's a miracle when it happens.

Post by Dennis E. Coates, Ph.D., Copyright 2010. Building Personal Strength .