A Modern Classic: Jack Canfield's 2015 edition of "The Success Principles"

During the past century there have been many dozens of books about how to live a happy, successful life. A few examples of the better-known classics:

• Think and Grow Rich - Napoleon Hill
• The Power of Positive Thinking - Norman Vincent Peale
• The 7 Habits of Highly Successful People - Stephen Covey

Do you have a favorite?

Now you can add the 10th anniversary edition of Jack Canfield's The Success Principles. Building on ideas that have stood the test of time, this beautifully written book addresses over 65 topics, such as "Decide What You Want," "Believe in Yourself," "Take Action," "Reject Rejection," "Believe in Yourself," and "Embrace Change."

Instead reinventing the wheel or giving old concepts new names, this book is like an encyclopedia of the most effective success strategies. Each chapter nails its topic with Jack Canfield's elegant way of saying things. Take this quote, for example:

Simple but profound. After all, what in life is completely under your control? Canfield is right: your thoughts, your images, and your actions. Few people manage these three aspects of their life well.

If you enjoy reading an occasional book on success, I recommend this one. It's the latest, and one of the best, in a long series of classics.

Post by Dennis E. Coates, Ph.D., Copyright 2015. Building Personal Strength .

Hear Judy Robinett Talk about Being a Power Connector

I have posted about a fabulous new book, How to Be a Power Connector, by Judy Robinett (The No. 1 business book of 2014, according to Inc. Magazine). It is, quite honestly the most useful, professional life-changing book I've ever read.

If you haven't read it yet, you can get a great preview by listening to this podcast interview, in which Judy talks with Mike Wong about the main concepts of the book.

By the way, Mike Wong's "Business Insights" podcast series is an amazing resource. Each interview lasts only 25-30 minutes, and literally dozens of experts have spoken on quite a diversity of useful topics. Check it out!

Post by Dennis E. Coates, Ph.D., Copyright 2015. Building Personal Strength .

Need Money to Launch Your Business? Judy Robinett Can Help You Find It

Judy Robinett

Recently I was rereading Judy Robinett's best-selling book, How to Be a Power Connector, which was named by Inc. Magazine the "No. 1 Business Book" for 2014. In addition to being the author of the best book about networking ever written, she is in fact a world-class networker herself.

As I was reading her book for the third time, halfway through the introduction I was stopped by a sentence which explains that she is much more than the author of this book:

"I am a consultant specializing in putting early-stage companies in front of angel and venture capital investors."

Then I watched this video, which she made for Careerfuel.net. In six minutes, she gives the most practical guidance for finding money I've ever seen.

For small businesses to succeed in finding the right kind of funding, Judy recommends that you have to prepare well, create a concise and compelling pitch, and present it in "the right room."

I've known about incubators, angel investors and venture capitalists, but Judy mentions some sources that were new to me: family offices and crowd-funding.

She also encourages entrepreneurs to ask for help. If you're a start-up, maybe you should start with Judy. 

About her book...

Post by Dennis E. Coates, Ph.D., Copyright 2015. Building Personal Strength .

Assure vs. Ensure vs. Insure - Get That Righteous Feeling

I was once in a meeting with some colleagues when I used the word "ensure" in the context of making sure something happens. To my surprise, a woman in attendance corrected me on the spot. She said I had confused "insure" with "ensure." The Duke Ph.D. in English part of me rankled at this, and I told her that while the two verbs have similar connotations, their meanings were the opposite of what she said. But she held her ground over this interesting point of grammar. I realized she had a strong need to be right, and with an open mind said, "You may be right," and let it go.

Today, 30 years later, I remembered this incident. Don't ask me why. At my age a lot of off-the-wall memories pop into my mind. Maybe my life is flashing before my eyes.

So just to be sure, I googled it, and the top-rated grammar website happened to be my favorite: GrammarBook.com. If you're ever concerned whether you're about to make a fool of yourself by misusing the English language, I highly recommend it. Search for the issue, or get the book and keep it close.

It's amazing the mistakes people make, especially news and sports announcers. Book authors not so much; they have editors to keep them straight.

Here is what Grammar Book says about assure vs. insure vs. ensure:

Assure is to promise or say with confidence. It is more about saying than doing.
Example: I assure you that you’ll be warm enough.

Ensure is to do or have what is necessary for success.
Example: These blankets ensure that you’ll be warm enough.

Insure is to cover with an insurance policy.
Example: I will insure my home with additional fire and flood policies.

So. I was correct. And even better, I restrained myself from arguing about it at the time. I just love righteous memories.

Post by Dennis E. Coates, Ph.D., Copyright 2015. Building Personal Strength .

The Ultimate Book on Networking: How to Be a Power Connector

After the third time my business partner, MeredithBell, raved about Judy Robinett’s book, How to Be a Power Connector (McGraw-Hill, 2014), I decided I should read it. Meredith is almost never wrong about these things.

The book arrived the day before I left to go SCUBA diving in Bonaire with friends, so I brought it with me to read on the plane. By the time I'd returned, I'd read it cover-to-cover, very slowly, twice, meticulously underlining hundreds of need-to-remember passages.

This is the most important success/professional development book I've read in decades. For me it’s a game-changer. It has caused me to rethink how I approach my business and how I work as a writer.

An exceedingly well-structured and well-written book, it skillfully blends the idea of strategic, purposeful networking with the central imperative to generously add value, giving over and over without expecting anything in return.

More than that, Robinett gives a wealth of specific how-to recommendations:

• How to put practical limits on your networking activities: the 5+50+100 rule.
• How to evaluate your professional relationships.
• How to organize a system to keep track of these relationships.
• How to “ask” for what you need.
• How to follow up after making contact.
• How to “work a room” at a public gathering.
• How to use social media to nurture your network.
• How to identify people you don’t want in your network.
• How to assess your own value as a network resource.
• How to approach a new contact.

And a lot more. I especially liked her insights about the differences between male and female networkers.

The book has so much how-to “meat” about this vital subject that for me, it’s more than a how-to book. It’s a reference book. It won't live in my bookcase. It will live on my desk. Before I adopt a tracking system, before I attend another conference, before I approach another high-profile influencer, I'll reread the relevant chapters.

No wonder Inc. Magazine named it the No. 1 Business Book of 2014.

I honestly feel that anyone who is trying to succeed in business and who hasn't read the book is at a serious disadvantage. My advice: get your hands on a copy and read it at your earliest convenience.

Post by Dennis E. Coates, Ph.D., Copyright 2015. Building Personal Strength .

Why People Think Zombies Are Cool

Have you seen this funny AT&T commercial, featuring a zombie who, presumably because he's neither dead nor alive, is intrigued by the company's lifetime unlimited plan?



The first time I saw it, I thought it was pretty funny.

These days zombies, which used to be one of the scariest concepts in horror films, are considered fun and "cool." Today, the big bucks are in selling zombie costumes for Halloween. The movie "World War Z," starring Brad Pitt, was a thriller about a worldwide zombie pandemic. It grossed a half a billion dollars.



Have you seen it yet? Me neither, but I plan to catch it on Netflix.

Why the public identification with zombies - the "undead"? It can't be about what zombies are, because zombies don't exist. Only in fiction do dead people get up and walk around. Real dead people stay dead. The fascination has to be about what zombies represent.

Wikipedia describes a zombie as a "person bereft of consciousness and self-awareness, yet ambulant and able to respond to surrounding stimuli."

Sound familiar?

I recently finished Eckhart Tolle's classic, The Power of Now. (I know, I know - Where have I been the last 15 years?) In it, he promotes a simple practice, the centerpiece of spiritual traditions for over 2,000 years, which is to quiet the mind's nonstop internal commentary about memories of the past and imaginings of the future, in order to focus conscious awareness on the present moment. According to Tolle, this is how anyone can achieve enlightenment. He may be right. Since the past no longer exists and the future is only something you imagine, the direct, unfiltered perception of right here, right now is the only authentic life experience a person can have. The rest is just the mind babbling away about the past and the future, making it impossible to be fully conscious of the reality of the present moment.

He says that for most people, the awareness of now is a rare, fleeting experience that happens when they are shocked into paying attention to the present moment.

In other words, for most people, most of the time, they are alive, but not truly alive to the reality around them.

Could this be why people are fascinated by zombies?

Post by Dennis E. Coates, Ph.D., Copyright 2013. Building Personal Strength .

The Power of Thank You

If you grew up with parents who loved you, they probably taught you to say "Please" and "Thank You," the first steps towards civilized human relations. Whenever I notice kids using these words, I always conclude good things about their upbringing and future potential.

These simple fundamentals of decorum apply to adults, too, although I know plenty of adults who rarely use them.

Too often in the past, I've neglected to say Please, Thank you, and You're welcome. Usually in a rush, I assumed that people knew how I felt and that my saying so was unnecessary.

But this is something I need to do better. When I say "Thank you," people know that what they did for me was noticed and that I appreciate their efforts on my behalf.

This is important even for the small things.

Without my thanks, people are left in the dark about whether what they did helped me and whether they should help me again sometime.

And when people express their thanks, it's customary to reply, "You're welcome."

This is useful because now the beneficiary knows that the helpful act was done with a willing heart - not begrudgingly. Important information.

Please, thank you, and your're welcome - simple, commonplace words that nurture relationships.

One of my favorite books is Marshall Goldsmith's classic, What Got You Here Won't Get You There (2007). It's a book for people who want to be more successful. It's full of plain-spoken advice about the small things that can have a huge impact. In it he devotes a whole chapter to thanking people.

He says, "When someone does something nice for you, they expect gratitude - and they think less of you for withholding it."

Once he was on a flight that was having trouble with the landing gear. He says that when he realized that he could die within a few minutes, he began to regret that he hadn't adequately thanked many of the people who had helped him in his life. He vowed that if his plane landed safely, he would find all these people and thank them properly.

And he did.

He says that thanking people can become a polished skill, and he encourages people to get good at it. "If you can get an A+ in gratitude, nothing bad will ever come of it. Only good."

Gratitude is a behavior pattern. Be honest with yourself. Have you been doing enough to thank the people who have helped you - even the little things? If not, now is the ideal time to ingrain the habit.

More about gratitude: "The Best Compliments in the World"

From Meredith Bell: "Creative Ways to Say Thank You"

Life wisdom from Marshall Goldsmith: "The Best Advice for Your Life"

Post by Dennis E. Coates, Ph.D., Copyright 2013. Building Personal Strength .

My Top Three Favorite Success Books - All by Steven Pressfield

During our most recent Spring Sale, we offered organizations some amazing deals to encourage using the 20/20 Insight performance feedback system BEFORE training and our Strong for Performance follow-up reinforcement system AFTER training to ingrain the desired changes in employee behavior.

Steven Pressfield

Quite a few affiliate consulting firms promoted these technologies, and after the sale we awarded some nice prizes. One of the prizes was a set of books for the top ten selling affiliates during the period. All three books were by Steven Pressfield, my favorite success writer:

• The War of Art
• Turning Pro
• Do the Work

What I love about these books is that Pressfield doesn't try to re-invent the wheel. He just tells the truth about following your passion and focusing on getting the work done. And the stories he uses to illustrate his points are unforgettable.

I hope our busy affiliates find time to read them!

Post by Dennis E. Coates, Ph.D., Copyright 2013. Building Personal Strength .

The First 20 Hours: How to Learn Anything...Fast

The title of Josh Kaufman's new book, The First 20 Hours: How to Learn Anything...Fast, seems too good to be true. Anything? In 20 hours? But as you read the book, you'll quickly appreciate that there's no "free lunch" or "snake oil" here. The method he describes is based on brain science and common sense. And if you do what he says, it will work. For several reasons, this is one of the most important how-to books I've ever read. Here's what I love about it:

He gets the brain science right. Skill acquisition is something that happens in the brain. If you want to influence the way you learn a new skill, you need to understand how learning actually works - in your brain. I've been studying behavior change, skill development and the human brain for over 25 years, and I can tell you this: Josh Kaufman did his homework.

It's a real how-to book. I recently read another popular book about learning, The Power of Habit, by Charles Duhigg. It does a fair job of explaining habits, but the No. 1 question any reader would have - "How do I change a bad habit?" - isn't addressed until the end, in a 10-page appendix. Explaining how to acquire skills is addressed throughout Kaufman's book - all 258 pages of it.

The book delivers. He presents a relatively simple approach to acquiring a skill as quickly as possible, one that is 100% aligned with the neuroscience of learning. He accomplishes this in the first 40 pages, then in the rest of the book he illustrates this method using six interesting skills he acquired during a single year. Throughout, he keeps it simple. At the end you're left with the thought: "I can do that."

He has a wonderful conversational style. It's as if this really friendly guy who knows what he's talking about is sitting across the table explaining things - without any of the boring academic or technical B.S. It's practically impossible to misunderstand his message.

He introduces his method by contrasting it with one of the themes of Outliers, by Malcolm Gladwell. Gladwell's book became famous for the claim that if you want to become a world-class expert in anything, you have to invest at least 10,000 hours of practice. So now people everywhere are saying, "I'd better start putting in my 10,000 hours."

Kaufman makes a very important point: almost no one wants to become a world-class expert. All most people want to do is achieve "sufficiency," or "the capacity to perform well enough for your own purposes." The whole point of his book is that you can achieve this with about 20 hours of concentrated, intelligent, focused effort.

His method is to break the skill you want to learn into subskills. Then, do your homework to get background information about each subskill so you can practice intelligently and critique yourself. Remove all barriers to practice, then practice the most important subskills first - at least 20 hours each.

He then explains 10 principles of rapid skill acquisition. The first is to learn to do something you really love. That way you'll be motivated enough to do the required practice.

Another principle is to focus on one skill at a time. When I read this, I became a true convert. I've been preaching focus in my own work for years; it's a critical guideline that practically no one in the learning and development business mentions.

As for the other eight principles, well...read the book!

Even though what he promises is exciting and empowering, Kaufman is thoroughly realistic about his recommendations. "If you want to acquire a new skill, you have to practice. There is no other way. You can prepare. You can research. You can eliminate distractions and alter your environment to make it easier to practice. You can find intelligent ways to make your practice more effective or efficient. But, in the end, you must practice."

You gotta do the reps.

Post by Dennis E. Coates, Ph.D., Copyright 2013. Building Personal Strength .

Bend, Not Break - From Great Adversity to Great Achievement

Ping Fu is the founder and CEO of Geomagic, which makes 3D software for design and engineering. In 2005, Inc. Magazine named her Entrepreneur of the Year.

She's also the author of a book called Bend, Not Break, which recounts her story of oppression as a young girl in Maoist China and how she grew up to be one of the foremost technology leaders in America.

Tina Brown, editor-in-chief of Newsweek, spoke to NPR's "Morning Edition" about the book. The Cultural Revolution's anti-elitist campaign targeted Ping Fu's family, and at the age of nine she was taken from her parents and shipped to a prisonlike facility to degrade her and make an example of her. She was gang-raped and forced to eat "bitter meals" composed of dung and dirt "to humiliate and dehumanize her, to demonstrate her worthlessness as an individual."

For the next 10 years she existed without parents or education. After the end of Mao's regime, she attended university. But after she wrote a bold thesis about infanticide in China, she was forced to leave the country. She arrived in the U.S. with only a few dollars in her pocket, but went on to attend the University of California and the University of Illinois.

It's a moving story, and Ms. Brown remarks about how amazing it is that someone who was so severely oppressed could achieve so much.

Yes, because on the one hand, the abuse could have broken her spirit, sending her down a road of depression, horror and even death.

But this doesn't always happen. For some kids, the "if it doesn't kill you it makes you stronger" axiom applies. They struggle against the oppression; they face the adversity and fight to make a life. They bend, but they don't break.

In fact, I'll state that Ping Fu would never have achieved what she did if she hadn't suffered through all the extreme challenges as a child. Adversity is the only way to build personal strengths. To sharpen the ax, you have to push it against the spinning stone. Forced to deal with the extreme problems in her life as a teenager, she wired her prefrontal cortex for robust problem solving skills. This is how in college many disadvantaged young people, who have been made strong by hardship, catch up to their "soft" peers who came from wealthy families.

Ping Fu's moving story inspires me to encourage adults to coach disadvantaged young people to make use of the challenges in their lives to get stronger, so they bend, not break.

Post by Dennis E. Coates, Ph.D., Copyright 2012. Building Personal Strength .

Johnny Manziel - How Will Johnny Football Handle Celebrity in 2013?

Johnny Manziel

When the Texas A&M freshman quarterback's name was called as the 2012 winner of the Heisman Trophy, I felt a thrill of delight. I'm a Texan (I wasn't born here but I got here as soon as I could), and for the second year in a row, the prestigious Heisman Trophy went to a Texan. Not to a University of Texas player (my favorite college football team), but to players from Baylor (Robert Griffin III) and now Texas A&M. Ricky Williams was the last U.T. player to get the Heisman (1998), and Earl Campbell before him (1977).

From Johnny Manziel to Johnny Football to Johnny Heisman, the young man has exploded from high school football overachiever to college football legend in less than a year. On the field, he did things no other football player has ever done. When Tim Tebow won the Heisman in 2007, he had 3,286 yards passing and 895 yards rushing, truly awesome numbers. By comparison, Johnny Manziel had 3.419 yards passing and 1,181 yards rushing. Along the way, he put the Texas A&M football team on his back and knocked off then No. 1 Alabama, 29-24.

Heisman Trophy

So he deserves the honor. But put yourself in his shoes. How would you handle all this notoriety if you were 20 years old and analysts on ESPN were calling you "Johnny Football"? During all the preceremony interviews and on stage the night of the award, he conducted himself with grace, humility and maturity. On-screen, ESPN's Chris Fowler asked him, "Are you sure you're a freshman?"

But when asked about his son's maturity, Manziel's father said this in an interview: "He's not there yet." Not so long ago, back in June, months before the 2012 football season started, Manziel was far, far from being a legend. According to news reports, he got into a fight and was arrested and jailed for disorderly conduct and presenting a fake ID.

Now that Manziel is a celebrity, the concerns are these:

• Has the season really matured him? Is his character strength for real?
• How will he handle the pressure to be "Johnny Football" again next year?
• What will happen when opposing teams study the tapes and adjust their defenses to stop him?
• Will he be as hungry next year as he was this year, or will he let the celebrity go to his head?

In other words, how will Johnny Football handle celebrity?

Since the Heisman, part of the answer is that he really enjoyed it. He appeared on all the late night talk shows, and he seemed to enjoy it and handle the exposure with grace.

The other part of the answer is what he did a month later in the Cotton Bowl. Few Heisman Trophy winners have ever had to deal with as much adulation and as many distractions as he had during his break from football. He put on a demonstration of football wizardry rarely seen as he inspired Texas A&M to a 41-13 route of an excellent Oklahoma U. football team. And oh by the way, passed for 287 yards (22 of 34 completions) while racking up 229 rushing yards (only 17 carries). That many rushing yards is rare for a running back, unprecedented for a quarterback - 516 total yards. He zipped around defenders so quickly that they couldn't seem to lay a hand on him.

The bottom line, on the big stage he proved that his Heisman celebrity was no fluke, and he didn't let it go to his head.

So what about next year?

The ultimate answer is illuminated in one of my favorite novels, The Teachings of Don Juan, by Carlos Castaneda. In the book, the character Carlos is being instructed by Don Juan, a shaman teacher. Don Juan talks about the "four natural enemies" of a "man of knowledge," or "warrior." He says that the first two enemies are fear and then clarity. A warrior defeats them by denying them. Only then can he move past them to achieve power, which itself becomes the third enemy. To prevail, a warrior must not indulge in the power, but "deny" it, meaning to continue moving forward without identifying with it.

Celebrity is a form of power. Many people who achieve celebrity and the power that comes with it let it go to their head. Elvis, Michael Jackson, Britney Spears...these come to mind immediately. All fell from grace because they failed to deny their power.

Manziel seems so humble. I hope it's not just his handlers, because I know he's getting great public relations coaching. I hope it's real. I hope he enjoys the moment, finds a place for his hardware and puts this amazing experience behind him. Next year there won't be any Texas A&M freshman gag rule. The media will be shining a spotlight and creating their hype stories all year long. That's what they do.

Now that he's achieved goals beyond his dreams, will Johnny Manziel be able to get hungry again? Will he be able to focus on leading and throwing and running again? Will he stay humble and do the work to get better?

Will he deny the power?

Post by Dennis E. Coates, Ph.D., Copyright 2012. Building Personal Strength .

Leadership Fundamentals Are Powerful Parenting Tools

This is a unique book on parenting. Chris Efessiou, a highly successful entrepreneur and executive, believes that the personal strengths and interpersonal skills essential to effective leadership also apply to being an effective parent. I've always believed this, and in his book, CDO - Chief Daddy Officer, he makes a strong case.

I love the way he gets right to the point, illustrating his message with stories from his experience of raising his daughter. There’s so much to say that parents need to hear, and in this brief book he covers most of the major topics. And they do, indeed, have parallels to being a manager: goal-setting, planning, authority, communication, empowerment, team-building and accountability.

His writing is clear and straightforward, and it contains a lot of wisdom I haven’t seen in other parenting books. Here are some of my favorites:

“Saying ‘Because I told you so’ too many times is like saying, ‘Ask someone else’ or ‘Find out some other way.’ It is a fact of life that children will then ask someone else or find out another way, and at that point you will have lost your opportunity to influence your child.”

“The problem is that too many of us do all our parenting when there is a disagreement or conflict.”

“How often during the course of a week are we taking the time to instruct our children in an important skill or value?”

“Some parents have confused the need to encourage with the idea of getting rid of standards of behavior or performance altogether.”

“If a teenager gets yelled at for missing curfew one weekend and has it overlooked the next, she will not realistically know what is expected of her, no matter what the ‘rules’ are.”

“Above everything else, listening and observing your children shows them you respect them.”

Good stuff! This is a fresh “loving father” perspective on parenting, with hundreds of useful insights. I found that I agreed with the author 100%. If you’re actively parenting a child now and want ideas that work, I strongly recommend that you read this book.

Post by Dennis E. Coates, Ph.D., Copyright 2012. Building Personal Strength .

Insights about Personal Development

David Singer

I recently had the pleasure of exchanging ideas with David Singer, author of Six Simple Rules for a Better Life, one of my favorite books on personal development. (In another article, I review this fine book.) The result of our interaction was an interview, which is presented here...

David: I’m a huge proponent of personal development. ProStar Coach is different from anything I’ve seen. How did you come up with the idea?

Denny: Several years ago there was a flurry of business books about how organizations waste $100 billion every year with learning and development programs that don’t change behavior. They blamed a lack of follow-through reinforcement and made a number of recommendations. But because none of the books explained why reinforcement is needed to change behavior and because no technology existed to support the follow-through, not much changed. So we began working on a system to enable the follow-through.

David: That’s a great idea. Whenever I speak to groups, I always start by telling them that I don’t want them to only walk out with a bunch of great ideas, but also a game plan for making changes. I give them some tools for tracking change, but the follow-through is on them. Tell me more about coaching follow-through.

Denny: Knowing isn’t the same as doing. You can know what to do but that doesn’t mean you’ll make it your habit to do it. Even a five-day training program can only convince people that there’s a better way. They learn what they should be doing, and they may even be excited about doing it. But that rarely transfers to doing it on the job.

David: Why do you think it’s so rare for people to follow through with changes?

Denny: The problem is that your behavior can be caused by three things. One is emotion. Something happens and you react strongly to it and that triggers your behavior. The second is a conscious decision. You might feel a surge of emotion, but you take time to think things through before deciding what to do next. The third is habit. Over the years, your repeated behavior has stimulated the brain cells to link together in a circuit, which automatically enables the behavior. Once the pattern is ingrained like that, you just do it without thinking about it. In a typical busy workplace, there’s not much time to think, and most behavior kicks in from habit, the way you’ve always done things.

David: So why don’t people ingrain new habits from the good things they learn in training?

Denny: It takes time to rewire the brain for a new skill or habit. No training program lasts long enough to do that. A well-intentioned employee may try the new skill at work, and that’s great. That’s what you want them to do. But because of the pressures of work, they’ll sometimes forget. And because the skill is new, their first attempts are likely to be hesitant and awkward. These shortfalls can be discouraging. Meanwhile the old habit is always there to fall back on, and that’s what people usually do. They give up and go back to what’s comfortable, even if it sometimes causes issues. I call this the “crunch point.”

David: I know that applies to personal life changes as well.

Denny: Yes. It’s like quitting smoking or changing the way you eat. People might be motivated to give a good idea a try, but they probably don’t understand that there’ll be frustration, mistakes and failures at first. They don’t appreciate that changing a behavior pattern is a journey and that progress will be slow, at best. If they don’t push past the crunch point and fight against their old habits for quite a while, they won’t repeat the new skill often enough to rewire their brains and behavior change won’t happen.

David: Changing behavior is a real challenge. I urge people to break their goals down into pieces and to make one small change each 21 days.

Denny: In ProStar Coach we also recommend you focus on one skill or strength at a time. Then it’s a matter of doing it in the real world, and then reflecting on what happened when you tried, so you learn from that experience. In ProStar Coach we call this process Focus, Action and Reflection F-A-R. It isn’t easy, as anyone who’s tried it knows. But even though behavior change is really what organizations want, they can’t afford to hire coaches for all the participants of their training programs. Maybe for some top executives, but not for everyone.

David: So that’s why you came up with ProStar Coach. Because it coaches the user, right?

Denny: Yes, we built this networking feature called the Coaching Network, which puts learners in touch with real people who care about their success. Plus there are also half a dozen other virtual coaching technologies built into the system.

David: I saw that it has a lot of content. What kinds of behavior change are you trying to achieve with that?

Denny: Good question. Actually, our content is focused in two areas: people skills and personal strengths. Personal strengths are behavior patterns that people need in order to deal with the regular adversity and challenges of work and life. For example, a sales rep can learn some good rapport-building skills. But what happens when the prospect is difficult or there are unexpected problems? The answer is, the sales rep will need to be patient, not give up, be compassionate, get creative, take initiative, and so forth. These aren’t sales skills. These are personal strengths. We’ve identified about 40 personal strengths that apply to the world of work.

David: What about the people skills?

Denny: We have content for over a dozen people skills. All the basics are covered, things like listening, dialogue, conflict resolution, and feedback. And quite a few more, including communications skills for parents and leaders. We use instructional videos to describe the best practices. Our approach was to focus mostly on the how-to in an engaging way.

David: Denny, I like the way you use your technology to get people to use the system. Can you please explain that?

Denny: To help people get into the habit of using the system, we have a 30-session introductory program that sends email tips and reminders on a daily basis. After that, we help them stay on track with weekly reminders, a program we call High Fives.

David: Excellent. Now, how can someone get ProStar Coach?

Denny: The program is available as an online service with a one-year subscription, which can be renewed. The best first step is to go to www.prostarcoach.com and find out which version would be the best fit.

David: Terrific. I hope my lifelong learner readers will check it out this great way to work on their life and work habits. Thanks for sharing this, Denny.

Denny: My pleasure, David!

Be sure to check out David's book and his website. Wonderful insights, wonderful resources! And for more information about ProStar Coach, click here.

Post by Dennis E. Coates, Ph.D., Copyright 2012. Building Personal Strength .

A Coach and His Autistic Player - A Miracle Night

It's an amazing story. A high school basketball coach gives Jason McElwain, an enthusiastic autistic boy, a role as team manager. In his senior year, the coach promises him a jersey and a chance to play in the game on Senior Night. Luckily, the team has a nice point spread, so the coach puts him in during the last few minutes. The crowd is thrilled and the players are good sports about it, feeding the boy the ball.

And then he makes one long-range basket after another, scoring 20 points, including a buzzer-beater at NBA three-point range, to become the leading scorer of that game. The crowd storms the floor and hoists him on their shoulders - a sports hero! Later, he and his coach are interviewed on practically every national TV venue. They win an ESPY award. They meet the President. Studios want to make movies.

How could this happen?

This is the true story of A Coach and a Miracle, a book by the coach, Jim Johnson, and the co-author, Mike Latona. It's the story about the  kind of coach you want your child to play for, a man who cares more about developing his players as human beings than he does about winning--even though he cares very much about winning.

And it's a story about helping mentally challenged kids to reach their full potential, which is far greater than most adults believe it is.

Here's what happened that night...



If you know a mentally challenged child, you need to read this book.

Post by Dennis E. Coates, Ph.D., Copyright 2012. Building Personal Strength .

Denny Coates - My Story...

Dennis E. Coates, Ph.D.

I'm Denny Coates, author of this blog, Building Personal Strength, which is focused mostly on personal development - improving personal strength and communication skills.

My other website, How to Raise a Teenager, is devoted to enlightening parents about the momentous changes that are happening in their teen's brain, as well as providing a portal to other experts about parenting teens.

I'm the author of two "heads-up" books for pre-teens and young teens:

Conversations with the Wise Uncle (for boys)

Conversations with the Wise Aunt (for girls)

Adult discussion guides for these books are available free.

And this free eBook for parents: How to Give Your Teen a Superior Mind

I'm also the creator of Strong for Parenting, an online personal development system for parents of teens.

But who am I, really? Usually authors don't share too much information about themselves. Not so here. For starters, here's a brief bio.

But if you really want to know more about me, click on the tag My Story... below. Over 125 articles refer to my childhood, my West Point and Vietnam experiences, and my life since. Not just for the sake of self-disclosure, but to tell stories that have a point.

Or if you want to get into my head and find out what I'm thinking, you can browse among the categories listed in the right sidebar. I've been writing this blog for nearly three years and about 700 articles are archived here.

TMI (too much information)? If not, enjoy...

Post by Dennis E. Coates, Ph.D., Copyright 2012. Building Personal Strength .

How to Give Your Teen a Superior Mind - Interview

The new eBook, How to Give Your Teen a Superior Mind, is now available free to parents and adults who work with teens.

Although several books about the teen brain have been published, none of them talk about the permanent long-term consequences of teen brain development - or what adults can do to cultivate a robust foundation for critical thinking, judgment and decision making.

Get the free ebook.

Post by Dennis E. Coates, Ph.D., Copyright 2012. Building Personal Strength .

Steven Pressfield's "Turning Pro"

Are you hard at work each day doing what you were born to do? Making that art? Running that business? Contributing that service? In your own way, using your best talents and making a difference?

Of course "born to do," is a figure of speech used in reference to making a contribution that gives your life meaning and purpose.

For example, anyone can say, "I could write a book about that." One can think about its contents, imagine the stories - even outline the chapter sequence and make journal entries or blog posts to get the juices flowing.

But until you sit down each day and say "no" to the thousands of distractions - which Pressfield calls "resistance" - and actually write one chapter at a time, hour after hour, day after day, rewriting, revising and polishing, until the work is finally finished and real, then you're fooling yourself.

According to Steven Pressfield, author of Turning Pro: Tap Your Inner Power and Create Your Life's Work (2012), until you're actually making the contribution that comes from the best part of yourself, you're still an amateur.

Pressfield is frank and uncompromising about how this works. He explains that "turning pro" is a psychologically difficult and momentous achievement. He gives this explanation in a minimalist style - the truth and nothing but the truth. If you can handle this truth, it can empower you to do what needs to be done. Without knowing how "resistance" works and what you have to do, you could remain stuck as an amateur for years, or even for life - and never realize it.

One reviewer called this new book a "rehash" of his earlier best seller, The War of Art (2002). I feel this is an unfair and inappropriate criticism, because while his new book does treat the same topic, it doesn't cover the same ground. It's as if Pressfield said to himself, "The book did very well, put me on the map. But I really care about this, and I know I can do better."

I loved The War of Art. I read it twice and lent it to a friend and never saw it again. I think she read it and gave it to someone else. So I bought another copy and read it again.

But Turning Pro is an even better book. It's more grounded, and the anecdotes about his own amateur life and his experience of turning pro are wonderfully written. I'm on my second reading now, taking it slow, using Pressfield as my writing mentor, the voice that encourages me by telling me the truth.

Post by Dennis E. Coates, Ph.D., Copyright 2012. Building Personal Strength .

Helping Kids Cope with Bullies - What Experts Say

Bullying is a big problem for a lot of kids. It's a problem because it happens so often, and an attack on a child, whether physical or psychological, can cause unfortunate consequences. The "if it doesn't kill you it makes you stronger" principle is useless here. Bullying doesn't make most kids stronger. It humiliates the victims, robs them of self-esteem, distracts from a healthy focus on education and other wholesome activities, and can make a kid hate school. An emotionally fragile teen might even consider suicide. Half the people I've talked to about their youth said they were victims of bullying. I remember being attacked by bullies a couple times myself when I was young. I was a small kid, the perfect target. I coped with it by steering clear of these jerks.

One author, Vanessa Van Petten, devotes an entire chapter of her book, Do I Get My Allowance Before or After I'm Grounded? (2011) to this topic. She tells kids to make a habit of hanging out with groups of friends, especially if one of them is physically strong enough to stand up to a bully. She even conducts workshops with teens and parents. She recommends that victims inform authorities and their parents, so these adults can contact the bully's parents to confront and resolve the issue.

David Walsh, author of Why Do They Act That Way? (2004) recommends that the victim try ignoring verbal harassment. Bullies like getting a reaction, and when they don't get it they sometimes stop. If not, he agrees that authorities should contact the parents. As a high school counselor, he would call the bullies' parents, tell them what was happening, and ask them to make it stop so he wouldn't have to bring it to the principal's attention - a tactic that worked most of the time.

Bullies experience the same hormone surge, emotional reactions and aggressiveness that other kids do at that age, but they're maturing physically faster, and they often feel resentment and anger in their personal lives. They think attacking weaker kids will make them feel better about themselves. The tragedy is that repeated behavior gets ingrained, and a kid who bullies could carry that behavior pattern into adult life. It's a common mistake, but it makes life miserable for the people around them.

Picking on a defenseless victim marks the bully as a coward, says Larry Winget, author of Your Kids Are Your Own Fault (2010). So they don't get the satisfaction they seek when their victims fight back and will usually back off when kids stand up to them. Of course this tactic might result in some scrapes and bruises. But Winget feels that the adult world has heartless people who push people around, too, and it's good for kids to learn how handle bullies when they're young.

One of my best friends told me a story about growing up in a tough part of town. He said his was the only white family in the neighborhood. Plus, when he was young he was the smallest kid in his class. To get to school every day, he had to walk past older kids who didn't like him and enjoyed beating him up.

He complained to his uncle, a police officer. His uncle sympathized but had bigger crimes to attend to. So he recommended the defend-yourself approach. He showed my friend his night stick and told him how to make one himself. Handy with tools, he fashioned a formidable club, and his uncle showed him how to use it.

The next time he walked the gauntlet of the tough neighborhood, the bullies approached him as usual. But this time my friend was able to inflict his own damage with a fury of well-placed blows.

He was never bothered again.

When my colleague Meredith Bell's daughter was 15 she earned a black belt in karate. Fortunately, she never had to use her skills. But I'm sure she would have been able to defend herself if she had to. Martial arts programs can do more than teach fighting skills. Along the way the best ones teach teach self-respect, self-confidence and other personal strengths.

So if you find out your kid is being bullied, do the child a favor. Don't treat it as an isolated incident, figuring the problem will work itself out. Do something about it.

Post by Dennis E. Coates, Ph.D., Copyright 2012. Building Personal Strength .

Death of a Teenager and Other Tragedies - Worth Avoiding

I often say that "the teen years are a perilous time of life," meaning that bad things can and do happen. Sometimes really bad things. Like a teenager being killed. If you think this is an overstatement, consider the sad case of Kristina Lowe. When she was 18, a combination of alcohol, marijuana, speeding and texting while driving caused her to lose control of her vehicle one icy night, killing two of her teen friends.

These tragedies are not uncommon. I live near San Antonio, Texas, and I read news stories like this so often that I no longer collect them.

Recently I've been thinking about Bill, one of my best friends when I was a high school freshman. I loved hanging out with Bill because we'd listen to our favorite music while talking about girls. He was good-looking, charming and confident, and he dressed like a college fraternity brother. He had a knowing air about him and often gave me fatherly advice about romance. At parties, he was the man.

After freshman year, my family moved to Germany and I lost track of Bill. But now, more than 50 years later, one of my old friends from that era mentioned in an email that Bill was killed in a drunken driving accident during his freshman year at college. He was driving too fast and ran off the road. It was terrible to hear, but Bill was a super-confident party animal kind of guy. As bad as I felt, the story didn't surprise me.

Part of the problem is that most teens are not inclined to think about the future. The here-and-now is where the excitement is. The threat of death as a consequence doesn't bother them because they don't think much about cause and effect and consequences. They don't appreciate that life is fragile and precious or that they, too, could die. The only people talking about exciting times are the survivors. The dead have no way to advise them.

This is why the "wise aunt" and the "wise uncle" in my books talk about a long life having a finite, undetermined number of years. In both books, the young person has to cope with the death of a loved one.

Talking to young kids about sex is so awkward and daunting that even today many parents don't do a very good job of it. The thing is, kids need a "heads up" about other difficult issues, too. That's why I wrote the books Conversations with the Wise Aunt and Conversations with the Wise Uncle.

Now there are discussion guides for these books so parents, instructors, coaches, counselors and other mentors can carry on intelligent conversations about the most important topics. You can download them FREE.

Post by Dennis E. Coates, Ph.D., Copyright 2012. Building Personal Strength .

Your Kids Are Your Own Fault - Truth-Telling Parenting Book by Larry Winget

Over the decades, a lot of bad advice for parents has been published. Strategies such as false praise and permissiveness may have played to parents' fears of losing the love of their child, but the consequences have been horrendous.

Larry Winget, with pet bulldog

After watching in-your-face truth-teller Larry Winget's entertaining speech to 2012 graduates, I decided it was time for me to read his parenting book, Your Kids Are Your Own Fault (2010).

Larry Winget, best-selling author, TV personality and celebrated speaker, describes himself as a one-trick pony. In his own words, "There is one central theme in all that I do. That central theme is personal responsibility."

Also, he's brutally honest and forthcoming when he dispenses advice. Reading one of his books is like talking with somebody with a hair-trigger bullshit detector, a grasp of the facts and an absolute certainty about the truth. When he "tells it like it is," he knows he makes a lot of people feel uncomfortable, but he doesn't care. Too much is at stake to mince words. It's a style that doesn't always go down easy. One of my Twitter followers described him as a "blowhard."

As I read Your Kids Are Your Own Fault, I found that I didn't agree with everything he said. But I did agree with 99% of it. And I love his style. For example, the current tendency to diagnose kids with attention deficit disorders and medicate them to be compliant in the classroom is a matter of controversy. Here's Larry's take on it, and no, he doesn't mince words:

"Medication is easier to administer than discipline. It takes ten seconds to get your kid to swallow a pill. It takes a constant 24/7/365 effort to discipline your child."

"Teachers have twenty-five little monsters who aren't paying attention and are looking out the window, picking their noses and eating their boogers instead of learning their lessons. When one or two in the class need some extra attention in order to behave, rather than messing with the fragile psyche of the child by putting him in the corner like Mrs. Bowman did to me, some teachers call the parents of the kid and suggest Ritalin."

"Okay, it's your kid and not mine. I am just expressing my opinion here. But tell me how the baby boomers, the most productive generation in the history of our nation, were able to accomplish so much without childhood drugs? How did all of us deal with our hyperactivity without medication? The answer: Our parents and teachers busted our skinny little butts and told us to shut up, sit still and pay attention! That's how."

I think that's what my Twitter friend meant by "blowhard." On the other hand, I agree with Larry on this one. Plus, I like the way he grabs your attention and makes you think about what he's saying.

He also says:

"Kids mess up. It's what they do. I see it all the time and so do you. I lived with it for lots of years with my own boys. But sometimes I realized that my kids were messing up because they didn't know any better. That is often the case; kids don't do the right thing because no one has communicated what the right thing is. As parents, we often expect something from our kids they can't deliver because we failed to communicate with them what we expected. When that happens, and the kid messes up, it is actually our own failure, not the kid's."

That may make some parents uncomfortable, but it's the truth. Kids can't read their parents' minds. More on this:

"When you communicate your expectations, it is important at the same time to also communicate what happens when those expectations are either met or not met."

"All actions have consequences. Even non-action has consequences. This alone is a great lesson to teach your child."

Another example of in-your-face truth telling:

"People tell their kids, 'You can be whatever you want to be.' That isn't realistic. You should not be telling your kid that he can be whatever he wants to be. Why? Because he can't....The truth is that he can be whatever he has the basic talent for being and is willing to work hard enough to become using that talent. That is a realistic statement based in fact. It doesn't sound as fairy-tale-like and it doesn't have quite the ring to it that 'You can be whatever you want to be' has, but it's the truth."

Multiply the above quotes by 100 and you pretty much have Your Kids Are Your Own Fault: A Guide for Raising Responsible, Productive Adults.

I think kids need to hear the truth. I really do. And I think parents need to hear it, too. That's why this book has been promoted to one of my top three parenting books. The other two are David Walsh's Why Do They Act That Way? and John Rosemond's Teen-Proofing.

Post by Dennis E. Coates, Ph.D., Copyright 2012. Building Personal Strength .