How You Relate to Others - Life-Changing Skills

My wife and I have been doing some recreational house-hunting. While viewing a beautiful home recently she commented, "I like this house but we'd need to replace all the tile floors." I thought the tile was nice. I thought to myself, the next time I hear her talk about expensive renovations, I'm walking out. "I don't want to deal with that kind of delay and expense" I said. "We need to find a house with tile you like."

I drew the line in the sand with that one!

And made a mistake. It was an opportunity to engage her in dialogue about the issue, and I blew it. Instead, she felt misunderstood and disrespected. The distancing caused by this way of talking is not good for romance.

I first learned about interpersonal skills in the mid-1970s. I took a month-long skills course and read Dr. Thomas Gordon's now-classic book, P.E.T., which stands for "Parent Effectiveness Training." My introduction to these skills was life-changing.

I learned that there is a most effective way to listen, to give and receive feedback, to dialogue, to resolve conflict, to encourage, and more skills.

I immediately integrated this kind of skill-building into my training programs and I've been trying to help adults improve the way they communicate ever since.These skills are crucial for leading teams and relating to coworkers. When you use them, you win. When you forget to use them, you lose. They're that crucial.

And yes, my brothers and sisters, they're equally crucial in a marriage relationship.

And to being a parent.

When you use the skills, you win. When you don't, you lose.

The problem is that we adults grew up not knowing the best way to deal with people. We learned how to communicate "on the street," so to speak.

We wired our brains for dysfunctional interpersonal skills, and we've been insulating that wiring for decades.

That's why they are so hard to change, even though we may learn about far better ways to listen, give feedback, engage in dialogue, etc.

Any of us can succeed, though. It's a matter of "doing the reps" and pushing past failure and discouragement until the new way becomes comfortable.

Parents can get away with poor communication skills for the first 10 or 12 years of a child's life. You can say "because I said so" to a little kid and get away with it.

But once a child reaches puberty, the game changes. This approach stops being effective.

Adolescents seek independence. And that's a good thing. They need to learn how to leave the nest and build lives of their own.

Teenagers don't want to be thought of as little kids anymore. They hate being treated that way, hate being talked to that way.

But that's what parents do. It's what they've been doing since the child was born. They may be unaware of the changes going on in their young adolescent, and they may have no idea how they should be interacting differently.

It's a problem that's been going on for thousands of years.

Teens don't care about these excuses. They need the love and wisdom parents can give, but during their long, slow journey towards adulthood, a still-developing teenager will be put off, even alienated by this kind of treatment.

They'll conclude that their parents "just don't get it" and they'll turn to their friends for support.

One of my best friends, a highly successful business leader, has two sons. Even though he used a heavy-handed approach to raising his sons, his oldest boy decided to emulate his father. He listened to his dad, worked hard, graduated from high school and college with honors, and became a highly successful executive himself.

But his youngest boy decided to reject this treatment. He got into furious arguments with his parents, blew off school, ran around with the wrong crowd, refused to get a job and didn't go to college. In fact, these patterns persisted throughout his twenties. He worked a few low-paying dead-end jobs, ruined a marriage and eventually returned home to live with his parents. I hear he's now engaged to a nice girl and my friend is hopeful. We'll see. He's still the well-intentioned but abrasive, autocratic father he's always been, thinking he he knows best and can "force the issue."

I read about the consequences of the "generation gap" almost every day.

The most recent news story: A 14-year-old girl stole a car from her girl-friend (for the third time) and ran away from home with a boy.

Couldn't happen to you, you say? My own mother ran away from home when she was 16 and married a man she divorced less than a year later.

The point is, the stakes are high. There's great potential for something wonderful to happen for your child. There's also great potential for tragedy.

The biggest factor is how parents communicate with their growing child.

Are the stakes high enough for you to improve the way you relate to others? Is your relationship with your spouse important enough? Are your work relationships important enough to relearn a handful of interpersonal skills?

Post by Dennis E. Coates, Ph.D., Copyright 2014. Building Personal Strength .

A Grandson Moment - Questions about God's Plan

A man and his grandson were having lunch in a restaurant.

"How's your BLT? Plenty of bacon?"

"Yeah!"

"My chicken salad sandwich is awesome, if you're interested."

"Hey Grandpa."

"Uh-huh."

"Those people over there are saying grace."

"How do you know?"

"Their heads are bowed and they're holding hands."

"That's nice."

"We never do that in public. Only at home."

"Maybe they feel strongly about their faith. In America you can worship any way you want as long as you don't violate other people's rights."

"I think saying grace is a little weird."

"How come?"

"Dad always asks God to bless the food. Why does he have to ask? Why doesn't God just always do it?"

"You know, Kiddo, that's a good question. But I don't know the answer. You know what my mother would have said?"

"What?"

"She used to say, 'The Lord works in mysterious ways.' If you know what God's plan is, if you can figure out why He does what He does, you're a better man than I am."

"If He has a plan, then why do Mom and Dad pray for him to do things? Do they want Him to change His plan?"

"Man you do have a knack for asking questions. But again, this is one of those questions I don't know the answer to. Maybe part of His plan is to listen to people's prayers and give them consideration. If He can make a plan, He can change it."

"If you don't say grace, and the food never gets blessed, is the food not as good for you?"

"When you figure that one out, let me know."

"I don't like saying grace."

"Why not?"

"Well, I'd rather just eat. And I don't like holding my sister's hand."

"I see."

"It's yucky."

"Hmmm. Hey. Guess what?"

"What?"

"I just had a vision of the future. Your future. Amazing. I saw it plain as day."

"What did you see?"

"I saw you. You were a grown man."

"No way."

"Plain as day. You were getting off a plane. You had bought a plane ticket with your own money. It cost almost a thousand dollars. And once you were in the airport, you saw your sister. She was a grown woman and very happy to see you."

"Ha, Grandpa! No way!"

"Yes, way. She gave you a big hug and you hugged her back. And as you walked down the concourse to get your luggage, you and she held hands. And you loved it. You were thrilled, because you hadn't seen her in a long time."

"You got it wrong, Grandpa. That could never happen."

"I saw it. I guarantee it."

"That could never happen."

"The world is pretty strange and unpredictable, Kenny. We may not know God's plan, but you'd be surprised at the wonderful things that can happen."

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

Sleep Tight, Don't Let the Bedbugs Bite

"Sleep tight, don't let the bedbugs bite."

When you were a kid, did your mom or dad ever look down on you at bedtime and say this to you?

Why do people say this? Because "tight" rhymes with "bite"? What does it mean?

The first time someone said this to me I took it literally. I wondered if I needed to be on the lookout for bedbugs. I wondered if sleeping tight would keep bedbugs from biting.

Personally, I've never seen a bedbug, never been bitten by one. But I know they're real, and nasty. Still a part of modern life. Once they infest a mattress it's hard to get rid of them. Lots of hotels and motels have them, especially the cheap ones. If you're smart, when you travel you check for them before retiring for the night.

Don't let them bite? If your bed's infested, can you keep them from biting? It's kind of a weird thing to say. Except when you realize that the person who's saying it is someone who cares about you, and they don't mean it literally. It's just something funny to say (laughing in the dark?), a figure of speech that translates to, "I hope nothing disturbs your sleep."

But that other part, "Sleep tight." That part's not so easy to understand. What is "tight" sleep? Have you ever slept "tight"? Is it a good thing? What does it mean?

How tightly can you sleep? Does it mean you tuck in the covers so tightly that it's hard to move? Surely not.

We know what "uptight" means. To be uptight is to be worried and nervous. Surely that's not the wish your mom and dad had for you.

And they certainly didn't mean for you to get "tight" - drunk - before falling asleep.

And "tightly wrapped." This refers to someone who is obsessed with a narrow focus, to the point of being sensitive and dysfunctional.

The people who research the origins of words and phrases say that over 100 years ago people used the phrase "sleep tight" to mean the opposite of "sleep loose." In other words sleep soundly, so that your night is restful and undisturbed by bad dreams and other things that might wake you up.
People who say "sleep tight" mean well, even though they've probably never given a thought to what they're saying or what it means. Generation after generation of good-hearted people have been wishing each other safe passage as they navigate the bizarre, adventurous world of their dreams.

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

A Parenting Story - My First Major Stroke of Good Luck

I was thinking about my mother recently.

A few months before she died, Mom and I shared a phone conversation. We were talking about my seven brothers and sisters, and I joked that she had so many kids because she loved taking care of babies. After a child left the infant stage, she would work on having another. I told her she had a special gift for quieting babies. I had often seen her take a screaming baby from its frantic mother and quietly sing to it until the baby stopped crying.

She said that it wasn't always that way. Then she told me this story.

It was a hot summer night in 1945, and my mother was holding me in her arms, trying to get me to stop crying and go to sleep. A young, first-time mother, she wasn't sure what to do. My father, an Army sergeant, was away performing a military duty. My mother had been drinking, and she wanted to go to bed herself. I must have had a bellyache, because all her efforts to calm me only seemed to make the situation worse. Frustrated, she screamed at me and tossed me at my crib.

It was not a well-aimed toss. I hit the side of the crib and fell to the hard floor. The jolt must have surprised me, because suddenly I got quiet. My mom panicked, worried that her impulsive act may have caused serious injury. She didn't know what to do, so she continued to rock me in her arms until I fell asleep.

The next day she took me to the doctor to check me out. I was fine.

My mom says the incident scared her. It was a wake-up call. She had lost her composure and it almost had tragic consequences. She said after that, whenever she took care of me she saw something delicate and precious. No matter what happened, she would keep her emotions under control.

I now consider this incident my first brush with death - and my first major stroke of good luck. At that age, the skull of an infant is still soft, and a blow to the head could have killed me. As luck would have it, I landed in a way that didn't cause injury.

In life, actions have consequences. If you want something to happen, you have to make it happen. But the world isn't on your side. It doesn't care about you at all. You need to give your best effort, and very often this does the trick. But sometimes the world doesn't cooperate, something unexpected happens, and your best efforts don't give you the result you hoped for.

Other times, you're bailed out by something beyond your control. You get lucky.

At this point, somehow it seems appropriate that I should wish you good luck. So here goes...

Whatever you're working hard to achieve in your life, I wish you all the luck in the world!

As if a wish could make a difference. It's a nice sentiment, though. And maybe it will encourage you to keep trying.

More about luck...

Some tips for increasing the odds for good luck...

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

Luck and My Accidental Life

The other day I was alone in my car, sitting at a stop light, patiently waiting for it to turn green. It was a busy thoroughfare, and the line of cars was like an evacuation.

Finally, the light turned green. I paused for a moment, and in that moment a 16-wheeler flew by doing 60 mph. Whoa! He had run a red light! If I had gone ahead when the light turned green, he would have hit me and probably would have killed me.

Reflecting on how lucky I was, I remembered that something similar happened to me nearly 20 years ago in Miami. I had spent the evening sampling the colorful nightlife at South Beach and was headed back to my hotel. Two blocks from the beach, I came to a red light. I was listening to the last few minutes of an NBA Finals game in which Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls were about to win the championship. The light turned green, and since I was listening to the game, I wasn't in a big hurry and didn't zoom off. But just as my foot reached for the accelerator, a huge truck flew by. The driver had run a red light. I thought at the time that I could have been killed. I was lucky. Maybe I owe my life to Michael Jordan!

I've had plenty of close brushes with death - in Vietnam, in traffic, etc. After each event, I thought that I was still alive purely because of chance. I could have died.

One of my best friends, a fellow Vietnam vet, remarked to me once, "We're already dead." Meaning, we almost died numerous times and are still alive by luck or accident. None of us knows when or how our death will come. The fantasy is, I will live a full, happy life and then die in my sleep at the age of 100, plus or minus. As I said, a fantasy.

Two of the most important people in my life are my sons. I'm lucky to have them. In the case of my youngest son, I'm lucky in two special ways. One, he's the genius software engineer who has created every product my company has produced for more than 25 years. How about that for luck? What would I have done without him? My life would be a lot different. I'm sure I wouldn't be writing this blog post right now.

Two, I'm lucky that he's alive at all. No, he hasn't had any close brushes with death - that I know of. But he's lucky he was ever born. All those years ago, my wife and I wanted two children. My first son was born in Frankfurt, Germany when I was stationed there in the late 60's. Sometime after I went to Vietnam, my wife miscarried. It was a sad thing, and I couldn't be there for her. It was probably brought on by stress. Midway through my tour, I had an R 'n' R pass to Hawaii, and we met there for a romantic week. She got pregnant, but later suffered a second miscarriage. A year after I returned, my second son was born.

But here's the deal. If she hadn't miscarried, a child would have been born. And it wouldn't have been the person who is my youngest son. It would have been someone else. And we wouldn't have tried to have more children. So my youngest son owes his life to those two miscarriages. Yes, they were difficult times for my wife, but they were lucky times, because of who my youngest son turned out to be, and the great relationship we've had.

So both of us are living "accidental lives."

Come to think of it, aren't we all?

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

Nature, Nurture and Choice - Heavy Thoughts at a Wild Party

It was one of the coolest weddings I've ever attended, the reception turned into a lively celebration, I was doing the kind of dancing I do only after I've had way too many drinks, and my friend and I were catching our breath. We were talking about his kids and out of the blue he asked me: "So, where do you land on the question of nature or nurture?"

Well, now. I was flattered he would ask me a question like this at a wedding party, but my brain had to shift gears to consider it. I knew where I stood on the issue, so it didn't take me long to reply.

"Neither nature nor nurture. Choice. Yes, our genetic inheritance gives us our start-point hardware, our potential and limitations. But after that it's about learning. Like a computer, we upload the software and the data."

"Choice? I never heard that answer before."

"We're different from animals because we can think, ponder and reflect before we act. It's not just instinct, habit and stimulus-response. We make conscious choices. We decide what we want to do. You take Person A and Person B and you put both people in exactly the same situation, and they may not make the same choices. And their actions will have consequences."

"Choice," he repeated. He looked a little dazed. I'm pretty sure he had dispatched as many drinks as I had.

"We're responsible for our actions. For what we learn. For what we do. For what we become. For our lives. You can't account for a person's actions by saying it's something he's born with, and you can't say the world programmed him to do it. We choose to do what we do."

I don't remember all the details of that night, but I think my friend changed the subject.

The question he asked is an important one, and it's worth discussing; but you don't have to take my answer as the final word. Check out this brief video from the man, author Stephen Covey.

Food for thought...

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

Intimacy, Separateness and Social Media

Recently I attended a lovely outdoor dinner party hosted by friends in my neighborhood. About 25 people were there, most of them familiar acquaintances. It was interesting and fun to "catch up." And I met some people for the first time. The weather cooperated, and I had a good time.

Talking with these people, I was reminded of the limitations of intimacy. All of us assume that we "know" each other; but realistically, we know very little about what we've been doing each day or what's going on now. If there are issues, things going on behind closed doors, we're not privy to it. That's how life works; our separateness is a very real thing.

It's true even when it comes to best friends and family members - even immediate family. For example, do parents really understand what's going on in the lives of their teenage children? Most don't. I've never met a parent who did. It's not that we're too busy, uncaring or ignorant. It's just that we lead separate lives, and the people around us don't really know everything that's going on.

My eyes were opened to this reality at a reunion with some of my best high school buddies. We were close back then, but I learned that we really didn't know each other very well. And after 40 years, we had no idea who these familiar guys in old people's bodies were. If we were curious, we'd have to try get to know each other all over again. And that would take us only so far.

We try to stay in touch with our family and best friends. Our relationships depend on it. And of course, time spent in-person, face-to-face is the best way of maintaining intimacy. Everyone knows that.

But spending this kind of quality time with all these people is hard, if not impossible.

So we talk on the phone. We hear the real voice, even the tone of voice, to get most of what they're thinking and feeling. It's a real-time back-and-forth conversation.

Also, there's chat or instant messaging. You don't get the nonverbal message, which the experts say is the major part of the communication. But at least the back-and-forth communication is real-time, or almost. No talking, just typing. So this digital form of communication is one more step removed than a phone call from being with the real person.

Even further distanced are email, texting, blogging, Facebook, Twitter, etc. These messages are essentially brief, delayed in time and practically devoid of emotional content. They call it social media, but it's the least social of all the media. It's almost like a way of communicating without having to really connect or communicate much. In other words, it' a way to have a relationship without the intimacy - a way to stay in touch with an acquaintance without ever revealing your true self or getting to know the person.

I've used social media to stay in touch with certain people I've never met - for years. Some of these folks seem like interesting people, the kind of people I'd like to know better. I've even talked on the phone with some of them - our most revealing interchanges, by far. I would even love to meet them in person sometime - a huge step towards intimacy.

But as I've said before, there's this impenetrable separateness that limits how intimate we can be.

I think social media is popular with teenagers because they're experimenting with relationships, and this is a way to do it without the risks of true intimacy. Also, inexperienced as they are in relationships, they're fooled by these shallow tweets and posts, believing they're a form of intimacy.

I guess I'm a retro old fart when it comes to texting. I participate in social media, but I have no illusions about it. I have my iPhone, but I don't send text messages. To me, texting is the most impersonal and distanced medium devised so far. You type out these little word bites without having to actually converse.

Like a few other trends in the culture, I'm going to pass on this one. If you have a cell phone and want to communicate, don't text me. Call me. Maybe we can have a real-time conversation. If I'm not available, leave a recording of your voice. I want to hear your voice; I enjoy getting the nonverbal part of the message.

Besides, there's something ridiculous about sending a message one character at a time, using my big fat thumbs on those teeny-tiny keys. It reminds me of 100 years ago, when the fastest way for people to communicate long-distance was the telegraph, where you clicked a key to send a two-line message one character at a time.

I can't make myself do it.

Post by Dennis E. Coates, Ph.D., Copyright 2012. Building Personal Strength . (Permission to use images purchased from fotolia.com)

Anatomy of a Trailer Park Murder-Suicide

I write a lot about the window of development for the part of the brain known as the prefrontal cortex, which happens during adolescence. It's a ten- to twelve-year opportunity for a young person to become wired for the cognitive skills for critical thinking: i.e., comprehension, analysis, logic, intuition, problem solving, decision making, planning, organizing and managing. Or not. The potential also exists for neglecting the opportunity, resulting in minimal development in that area.

The question sometimes comes up, so what? So what if a young person doesn't work that area much during the so-called critical period of development?

The answer is that at the end of adolescence, the areas of the prefrontal cortex that weren't reinforced and wired will lose the connections that weren't used. So if very little critical thinking was exercised in youth, very little foundation for logical judgment will remain.

The consequence is an adult who may have other good qualities, but who doesn't think things through very well.

I was thinking about this as I read a report in the paper about a local murder case. Elizabeth Trevino, 37, was with her family celebrating Easter when she got a call from her estranged common-law husband, Augustine, 39. The couple was having "relationship issues," and Augustine opted not to join the family gathering. He called to ask her to meet him at their home at the Windgate Mobile Home Park. When a female relative who lived with them returned to the trailer, she found the two of them dead. Apparently, Augustine had shot Elizabeth in the head, and then committed suicide.

Why this tragic result? Why this emotionally extreme way of resolving relationship problems? Yes, they were probably breaking up and it was painful for both of them. But why take another person's life? And then terminate your own existence? Were there no other options?

To pursue the answer to that question, you have to imagine what was going on in the mind of Augustine. Confusion? Humiliation? Loneliness? Resentment? Frustration? Anger? That's easy to imagine.

But why didn't Augustine try to think through what was happening in the relationship? What about taking his partner's feelings into account? What about considering the alternatives? What about foreseeing consequences? I can only imagine that he wasn't engaged in much of this kind of reflection. Apparently he was a man who reacted emotionally, with little capacity for logical judgment.

Had I been in his situation I, too, would have been deeply troubled. But I wouldn't have considered murder and suicide to be an option. Would you?

No one will ever know for sure why Augustine handled his issues this way. But apparently, thinking things through may not have been his strong suit. Maybe that was not his way of dealing with conflict.

So yes, people have the opportunity to wire their brains for critical thinking during adolescence. After that time of life is over, a person must live with the foundation that was constructed for the rest of adult life, whether it be a robust, expansive intellect or a minimal one.

Life is a perilous journey, especially if you don't appreciate how things work, the dangers and the consequences. Elizabeth's story is a tragic one, though it's not all that uncommon. Falling in love with Augustine turned out to be the biggest mistake of her life.

Post by Dennis E. Coates, Ph.D., Copyright 2012. Building Personal Strength . (Permission to use photo purchased from fotolia.com)

Self-Confidence - A Personal Achievement Remembered

I think of myself as a self-confident person, probably because every now and then I try something audacious, work hard, and actually make it happen. I sometimes wonder where this strength comes from - what helped form it.

Meredith Bell once posted a video on her blog, Your Voice of Encouragement, in which she suggests that writing down your Top 50 personal achievements in a "Victory Log" can help boost your self-esteem. Not that I feel I need more work in this area. But I've been interested in the exercise, because my previous attempts to list my personal achievements had never exceeded 20 items. So, curious about what the other 30 might be, I've been letting my brain wander in search of so-called "lesser" achievements.

This morning, a memory popped into my head.

When I was nine years old my family made a road trip to McGill, Nevada to visit my grandparents on my mother's side. My grandfather was a powerful authority figure. Head of a family of 16 children, he was a leader in that Mormon community. One day he and I were walking down the main street of town, and I asked him, "Grandpa, who made this town?"

"God made this town."

It wasn't the answer I was looking for. "What do you mean?"

"God created all that is. Everything in the universe."

"Everything?"

"Everything."

I pointed to the sky. "Did he create that cloud?"

"Everything, son. He created everything."

"The sun and the moon?"

"Yes."

"That saloon?"

"Yes."

My little nine-year-old brain questioned that. That didn't seem right. Why would God create a saloon? He may have created the sun and the moon, but surely, I thought, people created some of the things in the world. "Did he create our car?"

"Yes, God created the car. All the cars in the world. He created everything."

I decided not to pursue the matter with more questions. I sensed that my grandfather meant well and wanted to reinforce my faith, but I knew he would just continue to insist that God made everything that ever was, is, or every would be, and that was that.

But in my heart, I didn't believe that was the way things were. And from that moment on, I saw my grandfather as a fallible person. I concluded that I had to trust my own judgment on my emerging journey towards figuring things out.

That incident may seem trivial to you, but it was, in retrospect, momentous to me. And I haven't thought about it until today, nearly 60 years later. And I have to say, it's definitely on my Top 50 list of personal achievements.

Post by Dennis E. Coates, Ph.D., Copyright 2012. Building Personal Strength . (Permission to use photo purchased from fotolia.com)

Parents of Teens - Their Fondest Wish

I’m sure many parents of teens dream of someday saying about their grown child: “He’s doing so well. He’s a really, really smart guy.” (Or gal...)

And they hope their grown child says about them, “I had such great parents. They helped me so much.”

Because this would mean that all their love, support and sacrifices paid off.

As a writer about parenting, I sometimes think about my own parents. I have many fond memories about my childhood, as weird as it was. My parents loved me. I always knew that. They never abused me in any way. And they cared about my success. Without a doubt, they were good parents. I think they were always trying to do the best they could.

But to be honest, I wouldn’t say they were great parents. They never thought about parenting as such and never considered learning to be better parents. They weren’t great communicators. Neither of them were college graduates, and neither had above-average minds. My mother was a high school dropout.

So even though I loved them, they weren’t my role models. I never thought I wanted to be like my mom or my dad. I grew up the oldest child in a family of eight children, and my parents were usually busy looking after my younger siblings. We lived a lower-middle-class lifestyle, and my parents couldn’t afford to send any of us to college. They didn’t see that as their responsibility, and they made no plans to help us with higher education. Only one of my sisters and I graduated from college.

And I have no memory that they passed along any wisdom or life skills of any kind. After I left home, I quickly realized that I had a lot of catching up to do. And now, half a century later, I still find myself learning things that I could have learned when I was a teenager. The best thing I got from my dad was a love of sports, which was a great legacy. From my mom, I got the freedom to go where I wanted to go and do what I wanted to do whenever I wanted to do it. Sometimes that freedom nearly landed me in serious trouble, but I was lucky. And that freedom helped shape my self-confidence, independence and creativity.

So even though I had good parents and I always loved them and they always loved me, I could never say, “I had such great parents. They helped me so much.”

But that is one of the fondest wishes of many parents of teens - that years later their grown child will have these thoughts.

This is why I write. I write for the parents who care enough to do the work to be the best parents they can be for their teens.

Post by Dennis E. Coates, Ph.D., Copyright 2012. Building Personal Strength . (Permission to use image purchased from Fotolia.com)

We Mourn the Sudden Death of Max, Our Beloved Cat-Person

On planet Earth, over a quarter of a million humans died yesterday. In fact, that many people die every day. It's impossible to grasp the significance of this fact. Aside from the obituaries, only one or two of these deaths were mentioned in news reports that day. But each death is a loss, affecting the people who knew and cared about the individual.

My father died in a senseless car accident 45 years ago. He was taking his usual country road short-cut on his way to work. It was just before dawn. The other car failed to stop at a stop sign and t-boned the driver's side of the car. Dad was killed instantly. He was the father of eight children, and his death was not only deeply felt, it caused enormous consequences in the lives of my mother and younger siblings. His death was sudden and unexpected. One day he was playing with the kids in the front yard.

The next day he was gone. Forever.

My cat Max died recently. He wasn't among the quarter of a million humans who died, but his death mattered to me. The relationship I had with Max for fourteen years was one of the most important relationships of my life. I expressed my love for him often.

He and I had a morning ritual called "drinkee." Max slept with us every night. When I got up in the morning, Max would run to the sink and ask to be lifted to the counter. He could just as easily have jumped up, but he liked being lifted. I would then turn on a trickle of cold water for him. The ritual had two parts. First, he would step into the sink and drink from the faucet. Drinkee. Then he wanted me to pet him thoroughly. After a while, he'd take another drinkee. Then more pets. I couldn't shave until he was done with our ritual.

He was my TV buddy. I got this wide-screen HD TV so I could watch sports, movies, and science documentaries. Max would settle next to me in my recliner and watch all these programs with me. If I had cheese and crackers, I shared my cheese. If I had popcorn, I'd give him little pieces that he swallowed whole.

He had the most expressive face I'd ever seen on a cat. He had more than a dozen distinct, recognizable expressions. I could tell what he was thinking just by looking at his face. No language was required. His most common expression was, "I love you, Dad."

It happened like this...

• Afternoon the day before, Max scarfs down his dinner.
• Next morning he's late for breakfast - maybe the first time in his life.
• Later, he chases a cat toy, then takes a nap.
• That evening, he won't touch his food and eats only a little of his favorite treat.
• When Kathleen notices he's panting abnormally, we take him to the emergency vet.
• His condition declines quickly. Max seems in pain and is having a hard time breathing.
• The vet takes X-rays and explains he has a cancer tumor that is causing his chest cavity to fill with fluid. The fluid is pressing on his lungs so that he can barely breathe. She says without an intervention he will die that night. The intervention will be painful and will give him only another week. Other more radical options ruin his quality of life. No scenario has him living more than a year. She said he had probably coped and disguised his condition for some time.
• So we say goodbye.
• At 1:30 AM we go home without Max.

It's a strange thing to continue my life routines without him, because he was a special cat-person, a member of our small family. The whole episode was bewildering because it happened so suddenly. One day he was getting his drinkee and playing with cat toys.

The next day he was gone. Forever.

We know how to grieve, and we'll create a special memorial for Max somewhere on our property. Kathleen said she might want to plant a dogwood tree in front of the house.

Meanwhile, I'm going through the motions, slumping towards acceptance and ultimately, affirmation.

More about Max...

Kathleen mourns

Max - My Role Model for PATIENCE

My Buddy Max, An Intelligent Life-form

Post by Dennis E. Coates, Ph.D., Copyright 2011. Building Personal Strength .

Some Personal History - My Teen Journey

I was thinking today about how little my parents knew about my life as a teenager.

My parents, Willy and Bea, were good people. In 1953, when I was 8 years old, the Mormon missionaries visited our house and converted my parents. That put an abrupt end to the smoking and drinking. The LDS church would become a big deal during my growing-up years. Willy and Bea had eight kids, and I was the oldest. They loved the children and as far as I know there was never a single instance of psychological or physical abuse.

Willy was a career warrant officer in the Army. He was an avid sports fan, an enthusiasm he passed on to me. He introduced me to baseball and golf, the latter of which I played avidly during my teen years. I no longer play, but my four brothers still enjoy a round of golf with each other.

Dad was a sergeant when he married Bea in 1943. But according to my mom, she threatened to divorce Willy if he was ever sent overseas to serve in a combat zone. This ultimatum seemed extreme to me, and I never understood why she'd take a stand like that. Maybe she understood herself well enough to know that she wouldn't do well living alone.

So that's what happened. Dad served during three wars - World War II, Korea and Vietnam - and he never saw combat. Officially, he was colorblind, a disqualifying defect. On the other hand, he drove a car all the time. I sometimes wondered what he saw when he looked at a stoplight. Also, he volunteered for unaccompanied noncombat overseas tours, which kept him out of the rotation for combat tours. I learned later that these tours exacted a heavy price. Mom had to take care of a large family by herself, and both had to deal with loneliness. Dad was killed in a car accident on the way to work in 1968, while I was serving in an air defense artillery unit in Germany.

During my school years, I was intensely motivated to be the top student in my class. To this day, I'm not sure what inspired that motivation. I assume it had something to do with my mother. I like giving her credit for that. However, the main thing she gave me was freedom. She was always so busy caring for my younger brothers and sisters that I was on a very long leash. Actually, no leash at all. I had my first date with a girl named Sharon when I was six years old. At age eight I'd hop on my bike and without telling my mom I'd ride it all around the town of Neosho, Missouri, where we lived for five years.

When I scan all my memories of my teen years, I can't think of much that my parents knew about. Of course there were some shared experiences, such as touring around Germany as a family. But the time I spent with friends, what happened to me at school, my part-time jobs, my time on the golf course, my fascination with early rock music, my thoughts and feelings - the aspects of my life that contributed to my development were unknown to my parents. To put it another way, Willy and Bea had no clue what was happening on my teen journey.

Ideally, they would have been more involved. It would have been nice if they could have shared some of their wisdom with me; but honestly, that never happened. As I said, they were good people, but neither had a college education, and I don't think they had much of what I'd call wisdom. Also, I can think of very few life skills that were passed on to me during my teen years. My folks didn't have good communication skills, and they didn't know how to stimulate me to think critically. The bottom line - I had an awful lot of catching up to do. I was over 30 before I felt that I stood on solid ground, even though I had accomplished a lot by that time. To this day I'm learning things that I wish I had known as a teen. 

My parents were who they were. Like everyone else, I didn't get to choose them. I could only choose what kind of son I would be. I feel lucky that they loved me and gave me so much freedom. Even though I pretty much raised myself, I am who I am in large part because of my family background. The challenges and adversity in my life have made me stronger.

Still, I believe that parents who want the best for their teenagers need to be more aware of what's going on than my parents were and take a thoughtful, strategic role in preparing their kids for their adult future. It's why I write most of my blog posts these days.

And why I wrote these books...

Conversations with the Wise Uncle (for boys)

Conversations with the Wise Aunt (for girls)

Post by Dennis E. Coates, Ph.D., Copyright 2011. Building Personal Strength .

My Roots - Native American Indian Blood?

If I could go back in time and know my ancestors, what would I discover? Not having the facts, I've sometimes wondered if I have any Native American Indian blood. And if so, how much?

I know this isn't possible on my father's side of the family. His mother was born in Switzerland, and his father came from England.

But what about on my mother's side? My mom grew up in a large Mormon family in McGill, Nevada. Before her parents passed away, I met them several times. Her mother didn't seem to have any Indian features. But her father.? Maybe. He looked as though he might have some Indian blood in his background.

So I searched Google to see what I could find. Sure enough, my mother's mother had no Indian blood. Her father was born in Bradford, England in 1861. And her mother was born in Logan, Utah in 1863. But that great-grandmother's father was born in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1835, and her mother was born in Clackmannon, Scotland in 1844.

My only possible link to Indian ancestry had to come from my mother's father. But his father was born in Birmingham, England in 1867, and his mother was born in Tilney, England in 1869.

And so now I know for sure. There's not a trace of Native-American blood in my veins. I'm 1/8 Scottish, 1/4 Swiss, and 5/8 English. Those are "my roots." Which boils down to a great big SO WHAT.

I was born in Wyoming to American parents, which makes me 100% American.

I've been working on creating who I am for more than 60 years now, and that project is still underway. "My roots" contain only mildly interesting information. My mother and father influenced my early development, but my earlier ancestors had nothing to do with it. "Roots" may be a big deal to some people, but they have nothing to do with who I am today.

Post by Dennis E. Coates, Ph.D., Copyright 2011. Building Personal Strength . (Permission to use photo purchased from istockphoto.com)

My Son, The Genius

In 1988, when my youngest son, Teller, was 17, he worked shoulder-to-shoulder with me to create a computer program that scored and generated reports for the Success Style Profile, a first-generation brain-based personality test I had created. He also did the work for the most recent version of that program, called MindFrames.

The program functioned perfectly. More importantly, I learned that we worked well together. The process of design, specification, coding, testing and debugging went smoothly. I thought of him as some kind of genius (and I still do). I was impressed with his skill, creativity, work ethic and commitment to quality.

Later, he attended Texas Tech University, majoring in computer science. But he was a self-taught programmer, and he discovered that he learned a lot more and a lot faster on his own. And he was unimpressed with some of his instructors. He eventually concluded that college was a waste of time for him. So he left Texas Tech to join my company, Performance Support Systems.

His first project was to write the program for 20/20 Insight, a breakthrough 360-degree feedback system. And the rest is history. He's been a part of our core team for over 20 years now.

His latest accomplishment is ProStar Coach, a totally new kind of online self-development system. It's been in use for over a year now, and together we're exploring new ways to expand its power.

I never foresaw that my sons would be so bright in the IT world. My other son is more of a systems guy, a Ph.D. working for a company in New York City. And I never expected that Teller and I would be so compatible as coworkers. But we are. So for me, work is fun, and life is good.

How did I ever get so lucky?

Post by Dennis E. Coates, Ph.D., Copyright 2011. Building Personal Strength .

Is It Love? Watch and Judge for Yourself

Have you ever had a relationship with a cat? If so, then you know they have unique personalities. They think, feel, make relationships, communicate, and remember. You experience real love for this non-human person. If they die before you do, you grieve them for the rest of your life. Dog lovers will tell you the same thing about dogs.

Yes, we humans have that huge, magnificent pre-frontal cortex, much more ample than that of cats or dogs. And we have the ability to create and use language. This gives us a more sophisticated intelligence, an amazing advantage. Although most humans don't do much with it.

So species arrogance is as misguided and inappropriate as any other kind of arrogance. If you want to see the world as it really is, then acknowledge the complexity and intelligence of many of our non-human mammal brothers and sisters.

Watch this brief, moving video and you'll see what I mean...



We can form complex, mutually caring relationships with non-human species.

And I love the other message: Reconnect with someone you care about.

Post by Dennis E. Coates, Ph.D., Copyright 2011. Building Personal Strength .

Separateness - What I Don't Know about My Friends and Family

If you've been following my blog, you probably know that I believe the years of adolescence - roughly age 12 to 24 - are a profoundly important period of development. They powerfully shape who we become as adults. For months now, I've been steadily interviewing people to collect their accounts of their youth. You may have caught some of these "teen journey stories."

This project has taught me a lot about teenagers, the significance of these years, and the impact that parents have. It has also made me wonder about the teen journey stories of my six siblings. For example, I have two sisters. One is seven years younger than I am. The other is 13 years younger. We shared the same mother and father and the same home. But we didn't share the same bedroom, friends, acquaintances, schools, activities or interests. In fact, I am left with this conclusion: I don't have a clue about their teen journeys, not one clue. In fact, their adolescent years happened after I left home.

Acknowledging this makes me realize how little I know about them. One lives in Cedar City, Utah. The other lives in Topeka, Kansas. Three brothers also live in Topeka. Another brother lives near Los Angeles. We are blood brothers and sisters, but for all sorts of reasons they are virtual strangers to me. Maybe they always were.

I recently visited one of my best friends. He lives nearby, so we get together regularly. The interchange is so rich and fulfilling that our wives typically get left out, sometimes for six hours at a stretch. Nevertheless, a few days after each visit, I wonder what my friend is up to. What did he do on Sunday? What did he do on Monday? Has anything important happened in his family since my visit? What unexpected developments? What disappointments? How did these events make him feel? What has he been thinking? What new turns have his projects taken? And the answer is, even with my best friend, I don't know. To be honest, I don't know much of anything about the ongoing arch and flow of his life.

Once we accept what we know and don't know about the people we care about, we start to understand the separateness. And I know that if I want to be closer to them I need to spend more time with them and continue learning more about them. This is the antidote to separateness, but it takes you only so far. Ultimately, we are left to walk our paths mostly alone with our own daily activities, memories, thoughts, feelings, imaginings, wishes, and plans. We share what we can, but most of it remains private.

To me, this isn't a sad thought. I was thinking recently that one sign of a healthy, mature adult is the ability to be comfortable with oneself, to be good company with oneself when alone. So being alone doesn't equate to being lonely. Loneliness is another matter. We can be with family and friends and still feel lonely, if the relationships are shallow or conflicted.

I'll continue collecting teen journey stories indefinitely. It has turned out to be an exciting path of learning. I have a feeling that my brothers and sisters won't want to be a part of that project. But along the way, I think I may pick up the phone more often and learn more about what's happening with them.

Post by Dennis E. Coates, Ph.D., Copyright 2011. Building Personal Strength . (Permission to use photo purchased from istockphoto.com)

My Strange Believe-It-Or-Not Story - Part Three

My side-trip to Missouri had turned out to be bizarre. I entered into a time-warp in Waynesville, Missouri, and the entire community where I came of age at Fort Leonard Wood had vanished. I then headed to Joplin to visit my 92-year-old grandfather. I had called him to arrange a dinner at the restaurant of his choice. At least this visit wouldn't be strange.

Wrong.

Actually, it began exactly as I expected it to. When I arrived at the nursing home, my grandfather was dressed in a sport coat and bow-tie. This is how I remembered him, dressed up to go to work for the night shift at the Topeka Daily Capitol. He looked frail, but he walked unassisted with a cane. All those years of walking to and from work had paid off for him. And he wore a smile, which is another part of my memory of him. He was cheerful and positive and was always ready with a joke.

I asked him what kind of food he liked. I assumed Joplin could accommodate any preference. "I want to get a hamburger at Wendy's," he said.

"It's OK, Grandpa," I said. "We can eat anywhere you like, anything you want. You and I have never had dinner out together before and I'd like it to be special."

"I want to go to Wendy's," he insisted.

It was a little strange. Given what was available, I don't know why he was adamant about a fast-food hamburger, but he must have had his reasons. Wendy's it would be.

At Wendy's we arranged our burgers and fries on our plastic trays and dug in. I asked him about the nursing home, and he told me they were taking good care of him.

My grandmother had died the year before at the age of 93. I have fond memories of her. I thought she was the most loving, big-hearted grandmother in the world. I asked him, "Grandpa, do you miss Grandma?"

"Oh God no," he said. He took another bite of his burger and continued. "I was so glad to be done with that bitch."

I was so stunned I didn't know what to say. I didn't want to know why he felt that way. It was too much information. I was so bewildered by his outburst that I have no memory of bringing him back to the home and saying goodbye. I don't remember driving out of Joplin, but I know I was headed for Oklahoma on my way to Tempe, Arizona.

Alone in the car, my thoughts took a philosophical turn. Some of these conclusions remain important to me to this day.

• You may have expectations, but be ready to be surprised by what actually happens next.
  
• You never know what's going on behind closed doors. I had visited my grandparents many times, but I realized I didn't have a clue about their relationship.
• You travel your life journey mostly alone. You can have intimate relationships, but the totality of your experience of being alive is known only to you.
• Aging and dying is hard, a lot more challenging than young people realize.

That was the last time I saw Grandpa. He died not long after my visit.

When I arrived at the Arizona State campus and saw the chaos of my son's dorm room, these lessons reaffirmed themselves. I had to admit that I didn't know what my son's college life experience was like. I didn't have a clue. I turned the car over to him, gave him a hug and caught a plane back to Virginia, to what I believed was my happy, normal life.

Post by Dennis E. Coates, Ph.D., Copyright 2011. Building Personal Strength . (Photo courtesy of Wendy's Old Fashioned Hamburgers)

Relationships and Separate Journeys

My best friend called me yesterday on his way to a business appointment. I hadn't seen him since our three-hour lunch a week ago. He brought me up to date about some of his life and business activities.

What struck me was the stuff I didn't know. How could we be so close and I didn't know his business partner has cancer? That he's laid off some of his employees? That his wife goes in for surgery in a couple weeks?

It brought home to me again the truth of the separateness of our lives. Yes, each life is a journey, but the journey has it's own strangely wandering path, and it's mostly unknown to everyone else. Your journey can even be mostly unknown to yourself, if you lack self-awareness.

I look out my window and see my neighbor walking his dog. What's up with him these days? What will the rest of his day be like? Maybe he's planning his next hunting trip. I could make assumptions and dream up scenarios, but I'd only be fooling myself. To be perfectly honest, I don't have a clue.

I have six brothers and sisters, and five of them live over a thousand miles away. It's hard to know what's going on in their lives, especially the lives of their children. When I call, I'm always surprised by what I hear. When I try to imagine what they are doing each day, the images I get are not like movies, but more like still photos of years ago, sometimes faded and fuzzy, sometimes blank.

And so it goes. We discover a bit of each other's journeys through varying degrees of intimacy: acquaintances, friends, best friends, life partners. But we never know the whole story.

I guess this is one of the reasons I love stories. In my life I've read thousands of stories and novels, and I've watched thousands of movies. Through these fictions, I get the experience of penetrating through the membrane of separateness that keeps us from knowing about another person's life.

This separateness is a fact of life, but it's not comforting. It's a good reason to stay in touch with the people you care about. It's why when we say "goodbye" to our friends we sometimes jokingly add, "Don't be a stranger!"

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

BetterThan Blessings - Appreciating the Blessings

Before going to my workout the other day, I stopped by The Home Depot to get some decorative hooks for one of the bathrooms. On the way from the parking lot to the entrance, I noticed something. No sharp twinge in my shoulder joint. No lower back pain. No weak feeling in my hip. No stiffness in my ankle. No painful pressure on the side of my foot. I had a nice bounce in my step as I entered the store.

I had this thought as I headed for the Bath Accessories aisle: I won't always be free of pain. I won't always have good health. I need to take care of my body and appreciate my health while I can.

This thought process is part of a new approach to gratitude I've adopted, one I learned from a book called On Second Thought. I explain the technique in a brief video I made not long ago. I highly recommend it.

It's common to wish family and friends "long life." But even 100 years seem to go by at breathtaking speed. So instead I wish you health, happiness, and prosperity - more of whatever you want. But most of all, I wish that you appreciate the blessings you have.

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

Wayne Dyer's Insight - Change Yourself, Not the World around You

It's amazing to me how many major life issues I've resolved simply by changing my attitudes - the way I look at the things that have been troubling me.

For example, for the longest time I was bugged by Christmas. The gift thing was a biggie. Buying gifts because people expected you to, gifts that people didn't really need or want. Quantity matters. Gift overload. Gift fatigue. I've disliked this ritual, which is fueled mostly by business and the media, a tradition gone terribly wrong.

Wouldn't it be OK if we just skipped all the presents and just spent time with each other? What if we focused on celebrating the birth of Christ, maybe performed acts of charity and giving in the spirit of Christianity? The materialistic aspect of Christmas has really bothered me. The trees, the decorations, the music - after so many years the sameness of it all became tiresome, and the expectations an unwanted burden.

What about some simple Peace on Earth? No way.

Of course this irritation conflicted with the expectations and desires of family. I became the Party Pooper, the jerk with the bad attitude. I wanted to be with family and I wanted them to be happy, but I began to wonder if there were ways to make other plans, so I wouldn't have to endure all the nonsense.

Ultimately, I solved my problem. I realized that the problem wasn't with Christmas or my family's traditions. It was with me - how I thought about it. I realized all this was important to them. For whatever reason, they needed this ritual to be happy. Why they insisted on doing it this way was beside the point.

So i decided to change my attitude. I couldn't make myself enjoy the gift ritual, but I could be happy that they enjoy it. I decided to focus on these thoughts - all of them true...

1. I am happy when my family is happy.

2. They will not be happy without their Christmas rituals.

3. I can spend time with them and express my happiness that they are happy.

4. As I learned in Army Ranger School, "No matter how bad your situation gets, it could always suck worse." The big-deal gift ritual only lasts a few hours - a trivial annoyance in the context of the good times with family.

So I don't struggle with it anymore. Which is a huge relief.

Wayne Dyer is one of the people who helped me focus on changing myself, rather than expecting the world around me to change. And it was surprisingly easy.

There's a lot of wisdom in this brief video clip...



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