HRD's 'Dirty Little Secret' about Training

I was recently interviewed by David Lee, internationally recognized expert on employee performance. The topic was my book, The Dark Secret of HRD. We talked about how and why I came to write it and how organizations can transfer what is taught in the classroom to consistent performance in the workplace. Click here to listen to the interview on David's blog.

David Lee

David Lee is the founder of HumanNature@Work. He works with leaders interested in optimizing employee performance and customer service, through his work as a facilitator, consultant, trainer, and coach. He has worked with organizations and presented at conferences in the US, Canada, and Australia.

He is the author of Managing Employee Stress and Safety, Powerful Storytelling Techniques, and nearly 100 articles and book chapters on maximizing employee and organizational performance, which have been published in North America, Europe, India, China, and Australia.

His article, "Why Your Employees Are Just Not That Into You," the third most popular article at TLNT.com in 2012, is a must-read for any leader desiring greater productivity and engagement.

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

From Texas: A Two-Step Dance That Improves Performance in the Workplace

I’ve lived in Texas just outside San Antonio for almost a decade now, and one of the cool things we enjoy here is Texas country music. Dance halls, ice houses and other venues feature live music almost every night. The tiny town of Gruene has three or four different venues, including Gruene Hall, the oldest continuously operating honky-tonk dance hall in Texas.

And yes, couples actually get on the floor and dance while the music is playing.

The dance step you see most is called the “Texas two-step.” Outside of Texas it’s known as the “country two-step.” Quick-quick slow, slow. Check it out:



You see how easy it is, and when it comes to dancing (which everyone knows is a form of foreplay) that’s how cowboys like it – easy.

When I’m not enjoying a local craft beer at a live music event, I’m probably thinking about more serious matters, such as learning and development and behavior change.

But it dawned on me recently that the difficult, all-important business of improving skills and changing behavior also involves a two-step.

At the most fundamental level, for training programs to succeed they need to be deployed in two steps - a kind of “learning and development dance,” so to speak.

Step One is feedback.

People need to know that something they’re doing is causing problems. Step One is to hold a mirror up to their behavior to help them acknowledge the issue, so they can begin doing the work to change and improve.

The unspoken assumption is that if intelligent, committed and well-intentioned managers and employees discover they need to change something, they’ll want to address it. They’ll make an effort to do so.

The assumption is that this kind of helpful feedback will empower the desired improvement.

This assumption is false.

Yes, most people are intelligent, committed and well-intentioned. But old behavior patterns have been reinforced and ingrained for years. Peoples’ brains are literally wired for the old behaviors.

So even if people want to make a conscious effort, in a fast-paced, challenging workplace old habits kick in automatically, and the conscious effort to do something differently often doesn’t happen. After several discouraging lapses, most people give up trying to change.

The only way to improve or change an ingrained behavior pattern is to rewire the brain – to stimulate the brain cells to connect in new neural pathways. This is the only approach that works. But it requires a long-term effort involving reinforcement, ongoing feedback, encouragement, and accountability.

This is the Step Two of the behavior change dance.

Most learning and development professionals and the managers they serve already understand Step One. For decades now, organizations have been using technology to help employees get the feedback they need.

The problem is, few of them understand Step Two. They don’t appreciate the kind of reinforcement, ongoing feedback, encouragement, and accountability that will give employees enough “reps” to rewire their brains. They don't appreciate how long it will take, and they don’t know if there’s a coaching technology that will support the follow-through efforts.

They do Step One. But there’s no Step Two.

So there’s no dance. And in most cases, behavior change doesn't happen.

So here I am working on my 20-ounce glass of brew, listening to Willie Nelson and watching couples dance. Yes, Willie Nelson – for real. This is Texas, man.

And the two-step is working its magic.

What most organizations don’t realize is that affordable technology support for both Step One and Step Two already exists.

20/20 Insight is the preferred feedback technology for a great many organizations worldwide. It has been making Step One easy for over 20 years now.

Strong for Performance, introduced in 2013, supports Step Two, the long-term coaching effort to ingrain automatic behavior patterns.

The learning and development dance really can happen. If you do Step One, followed by Step Two.

Post by Dennis E. Coates, Ph.D., Copyright 2014. 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 .

A Simple Quiz Reveals an Amazing Fact of Human Nature

A brief quiz...

Which will make the biggest difference for you to get what you want in your work and personal life?

A. What you look like - physical attractiveness, wardrobe, etc.

B. Who you are - Knowledge, skill, experience, wisdom, health & fitness

Did you pick B? I bet you did. "A" is really nice if you can make it happen, but where the rubber meets the road it won't get you very far, not even in your relationships.

Yes, "B" is where the action is, and you know it. BY FAR, most people pick B.

But you know what's amazing? When it comes to investing in themselves, most people spend much, much more time, personal energy and money on "A," trying to improve their personal appearance, than they do on "B," getting stronger as individuals.

Maybe it's human nature to avoid doing the hard things.

It's easy to get your nails done. It's hard to lose 25 pounds.

It's delightful to indulge in your favorite guilty pleasure. Changing a bad habit can seem frustrating and even painful.

It's fun to shop for bling. Mastering a new skill or area of knowledge takes long-term commitment.

Of course all people aren't like this. There are always the notable exceptions - lifelong learners, people who work on personal development, people who are so motivated to achieve their goals that they work on preparing themselves to make it happen.

What about you? Are you one of these notable exceptions?

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

At Kid's Birthday Party - The Truth About Learning New Behaviors

I recently went to a child’s fifth birthday party. It was an elaborate event with a backyard scaled-down carnival for preschoolers. The kids could throw darts at balloons, shoot a kid-sized basketball into a kid-sized hoop, and cast rings onto glass bottles—along with half a dozen other games. Cute kids scooted from booth to booth, trying to win tickets with their skills.

I was recruited to operate the game where they attempted to throw golf balls into buckets of different sizes. I noticed that most of them used an overhand throwing technique that sent the balls rocketing in a straight line towards the buckets, causing them to ricochet off the rim.

I gave the kids extra tries and coached them to loft the ball using an underhand toss to produce a gentle arc, which would increase the chance that the ball would fall into a bucket. They received this encouragement with a smile and tried again; but nearly always they used the same overhand technique as before, which made it all but impossible to land the ball in a bucket. Further coaching produced the same result. It was as if they had one way of throwing a ball and couldn't make themselves do it any other way.

The difficulty these kids had while trying a new way of throwing reminded me of some basic facts about how behavior patterns are formed in the brain.

1. Knowing isn't the same as doing. A child can learn about a better way, agree to do it and get excited about doing it, but unless he tries it repeatedly until he wires his brain for the habit, it won't be easy for him to do it.

2. Most of what kids do, they do from HABIT. They don't consciously think about how to do something, then decide to do it that way.

3. Habits and skills are – by definition - WIRED IN THE BRAIN. Brain cells are stimulated by action to grow together until they connect in a circuit. After many repetitions, the circuits finally form. Then the behavior pattern becomes easy and automatic, meaning there's no need to think about what to do. To change an ingrained way of behaving, a kid has to rewire her brain.

4. Wiring the brain takes a lot of effort and time. It takes a lot of REPETITION – practice – to stimulate the brain cells involved in an activity to wire together. Initial attempts are discouraging. Even after a child knows what to do, it’s awkward at first. He might forget to try the new skill, and the old habit kicks in. At this point, most kids get frustrated and give up. To rewire his brain for a new behavior pattern, he needs to persist past this early discouragement. With repeated attempts, the new pattern will begin to establish itself as a circuit and the success rate will improve. If he doesn't give up, the brain cells will connect and the new way will become a comfortable, automatic habit.

So this how little kids learn new skills, habits, and behavior patterns.

By the way, this is how adolescents do it, too.

And all adults. Even old people, like me.

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

Lonesome Jim - A Victim of Unconscious Parents?

Seven years after the release of the movie, "Lonesome Jim," I found it on Netflix. Starring Casey Affleck and Liv Tyler, it's the story of a man in his late twenties who, after failing to create a life for himself in New York City, returns home to live with his parents while he considers his options.

Actually, that's too generous. He's come home because he doesn't have the kind of mind that's good at considering options. His plan is just to take life day by day, sponging off his parents as long as they'll let him. He seems to lack character strength and the capacity for critical judgment.

At first, this is surprising because he seems to have such nice parents. His mother is overjoyed to see him, lavishing love on him and calling him by her favorite term of endearment, "My Pretty Boy." She seems perpetually cheerful, caring and optimistic. His father is an affable, supportive man. It seems like an iconic wholesome home environment.

Jim's brother reveals himself to be just as clueless and depressed as Jim. Since he already lives at home, his next step is to deliberately drive his vehicle into a tree.

For me, the drama plays out on two levels. The more obvious theme is whether Jim will get his act together and make something out of his life.

But the other theme intrigues me more: how did such nice parents end up raising two losers? What did they do wrong?

One of the employees in his mother's business is a low-life drug dealer. He offers Jim some drugs and then asks him to open a bank account for him. Because of his sordid reputation, the dealer can't do this for himself. Incredibly, Jim agrees, presumably because he thinks he'll have access to some of the drug money himself.

This mistake comes to a head when the dealer uses Jim's mother's business address to receive drug shipments, and his mother is arrested. But his mother learns about bail from the other inmates (not her husband!) and gets released. In a telling scene, Jim feels guilt and self-loathing as he tells his mother about his mistake.

"Where did I go wrong?" she asks.

"I don't know, Mom. Maybe some people shouldn't be parents."

His mother doesn't know how to take that comment, and I think most viewers won't either. How is it possible to be so nice, so well-liked in the community, so in tune with basic American values and fail as a parent? A major point of the movie seems to be that even good-hearted parents like these can raise children in a positive environment, but by the time the children are adults they aren't even close to being prepared for life.

To me it's an important question, because these aren't the kind of "problem parents" we hear about in the news. No physical, psychological or sexual abuse. No addictions of any kind. No immorality. Not criminals. Not cold, distant or absent. Not emotionally disturbed. The marriage is still intact. Yes, the boys have to take a large measure of responsibility for what they do with their lives. You can't put it all on the parents. But parents have a huge influence in what kids learn as they grow up, and somehow these parents failed to pass along some critically important values, attitudes, skills and strengths.

To me this wasn't "just a story" concocted by Hollywood to make a plot interesting. My own parents were like this - good, God-fearing middle-class people who believed they were doing the best they could to raise a family. But as I look back on it, I'm amazed at what was not passed on to me and my siblings. I worked hard and was fortunate in my life, but some of my siblings turned out shockingly like Jim.

These aren't "problem parents." I think of them as "unconscious parents." They love their children and feel they're doing everything they can, but it never occurs to them that they could learn more about parenting. For example, they wouldn't be likely to take advantage of a program like Strong for Parenting. They aren't aware that there are several essential parent-child communication skills, so they aren't trying to improve them. They haven't reflected on the purpose of parenting, so they don't have a good sense for what will best prepare a child to be the opposite of Jim: a happy, successful, independent adult.

I've always believed that being a parent is one of the most complex and challenging endeavors on Earth, and it amazes me that you need to be instructed, tested and licensed to drive a car, but in today's world anyone can procreate and become parents without any any training at all. Given this perspective, I see that a big part of my work right now is to create an increasingly higher percentage of "conscious parents."

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 .

The No. 1 Thing You Need to Know about Personal Development

Truth-telling time.

You can't change who you are by reading a book.

You can't change the way you act by watching a video.

What matters is what you do. Not what you know.

Books, video clips, quotes, motivational speakers, seminars, CDs and DVDs - all these things may inspire you, spark ideas and give you food for thought.

But the bottom line is this: when the world challenges you, when your life surprises you, what will you do?

Nearly every time, what you'll do is execute your ingrained behavior patterns. This has always been true.

Aristotle: "We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit."

If you want to change the way you hit a golf ball, you have to hit enough balls to ingrain the new pattern. On the course when it counts, it won't work to try to figure it out while standing over the ball. You have to have already ingrained the improved swing through countless repetitions. Practice, practice, practice.

You know this. Everybody knows this. Personal development is no different.

If you want to develop yourself personally, yes, you need to know what to do. But then you need to actually do it countless times. At first, your old habits will override your good intentions. But if you keep at it, eventually you'll have more successes than failures. The new habit will begin to take over. It's not easy, but it's the only way to succeed at personal development.

Yes, by all means, read the books and enjoy the presentations. But be realistic. This is only the introduction, the first step. If you don't do the work, nothing will change. You gotta do the reps. If you think you can achieve personal development any other way, you're fooling yourself.

A resource that will help you do the reps.

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

Teens and Violent Video Games - What's Really Happening

An issue has been preoccupying my mind - young people who watch violent video games.

In the entertainment world, the video game business is much bigger than the movie industry, with more than $10 billion spent on video game devices and programs every year. In 1996 the US Marine Corps licensed the video game "Doom II" in order to create their own combat simulation game to train soldiers for combat. According to news reports, Norwegian Anders Breivik, who went on a bombing and shooting rampage and killed 77 innocent people, claimed he watched the video game "Call of Duty" for hours on end to sharpen his killing skills.

Only 2 or 3 teenagers out of 100 didn't watch a video game last year, and half of the top-selling games contained violence. If you kill enough people, you get to go to the next level. The question is, are these violent video games harmful to children?

Dr. David Walsh thinks so. He's the author of the best-selling book about teens, Why Do They Act That Way (Free Press, 2004), and president and founder of the National Institute on Media and the Family. Here's his position.

There are actually two sides to this issue. One side points to disturbing studies. The other side says the studies are flawed and inconclusive. It reminds me of the public arguments over whether smoking is harmful or whether humans are contributing to global warming. Here's a summary of the pros and cons.

And here's my two cents, if you're interested.

Behavior patterns are created when a person repeats an action often enough that the brain cells involved physically wire together. A life habit results, and the neural pathway is permanent. And the brain doesn't care whether it's a beneficial behavior or a destructive one. Repeat it often enough and the brain will wire itself to do it automatically. It's one of the most important things the brain does; it's a survival mechanism.More on this...

If a kid plays "World of Warcraft" often enough, his developing brain is going to wire itself for the behaviors involved in playing the game. What if some of those behaviors are the attitude that the game is totally fiction, crazy fun having nothing to do with the real world? Then probably it won't lead to murder and terror. Maybe the kid will turn out to be a great humanitarian. Who knows what kids are feeling and thinking when they play these games? I don't. Do you?

These video games aren't the cause. Like guns don't cause murder. Murderers with guns do. Money isn't the root of all evil. It's the root of a lot of good, too. But money in the wrong hands....

So maybe you think "it's just a game" and it's a good way to keep them off the street. Maybe it even gets them interested in computers. Well, it is just a game and it does keep them off the streets, at least for a while.

For me, the bottom line is a question for parents who think it's cool for their kids to play these games hours on end: "Do you feel lucky today?"

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

Will Your Child Develop a Brilliant Mind? Two Things You Need to Know

The human brain has dozens and dozens of areas that perform special tasks. While a baby is born with a complete brain, it's like a brand new computer with no software and no data. So throughout childhood, the outer layer of the brain, the cerebral cortex - where "programs" and "data" are stored - programs its "operating system."

Each area of the cortex begins a window of development in which the foundation for that function gets wired up. As the child tries to perform the function - such as sight, hearing, physical coordination, crawling, walking, talking, etc., the brain cells in that area of the brain connect with each other. As brain scientists like to say, "the brain cells that fire together wire together." At the end of the period of development, The dendrites not used in the programing wither away and are absorbed by the body, and the process of building a foundation of basic capability for that area is over. The more exercise the particular area got, the more it wired itself, and the greater the platform of functionality.

Not all areas wire themselves at the same time. One of the first areas to wire itself is the visual cortex. Newborn babies don't see much, because that area of the brain isn't developed yet. But immediately they begin working like crazy every day to make sense of the information sent by the optic nerve to the brain. This is why visual stimulation is so important at that age. A child who is exposed to a rich variety of colors and shapes and textures will grow up with "an eye for detail." But if a baby were were kept in total darkness all the time during the first year of life, the window of development for the visual cortex would open and close without creating the programs for sight. The child would be essentially blind.

The last area of the cortex to develop is the prefrontal cortex, which is located behind the forehead. This is the area that "connects the dots." It forms associations and creates meaning and comprehension. So it relates cause and effect, envisions future consequences, evaluates information, performs logical reasoning, coordinates problem solving, decision making, planning, organizing and managing. You can see why they call it the "executive" part of the brain. When we say someone has a "brilliant" mind, we're talking about the prefrontal cortex.

Scientists now know that this area begins development at puberty. The window for laying down the basic wiring for critical thinking lasts about 12 years - the entire period of adolescence. Exactly like the other areas, development begins with "blossoming," as thousands of dendrites sprout from every brain cell in the area. But they aren't connected to anything. Like the other areas, the dendrites connect to other brain cells only when the person uses that brain area. The more it's used, the more robust the network of wiring. Sometime in the early twenties, the window of development closes, and all the dendrites that weren't used die off. Use it or lose it.

IMPORTANT - Development of this area is different from development of the other areas, in two significant ways.

First, the stakes are huge. When adolescence is over and a person is a physically mature adult, he or she will end up with a brilliant mind or a dull, simple one - or somewhere in between. I know people who are healthy, talented and nice people, but they don't reason very well. They have a hard time with conceptual thinking. On their own, they don't connect the dots very well. I'm sure you've met people like this - good people, normal people, but far from being brilliant thinkers.

This leads me to the second important difference. The development of the prefrontal cortex isn't like learning to walk or talk. It isn't a phase we all go through as we grow up, where we struggle initially but in the end we get the hang of it, we master the basics. Children have powerful intrinsic motivation to use the parts of their brain related to perception, physical coordination, crawling, walking and talking. They desperately want to have things, to hold them and use them. They desperately want to get from A to B. They want to ask for things and get them.

Teenagers aren't motivated in the same way to wire up their prefrontal cortex. They don't have a strong desire to think things through so they can foresee consequences, fight peer pressure, control impulses and manage their emotions. They can meet their needs and survive the ups and downs of teen years without working hard on cognitive skills they don't even know exist.

So the development of a fine mind isn't like a phase that kids work through to normalcy. At the end of adolescence, the brain cells in the prefrontal cortex that didn't fire together will not have wired together and the unused dendrites will be absorbed by the body. What's left is the individual's foundation for critical thinking. For life. There are no do-overs when it comes to brain development.

Yes, later as a adult the person can turn on to learning and build on the end result. But a minimal platform means limitations. It's hard to achieve comprehension when you aren't good at comprehending. So it will be hard to build on the basic foundation, and only so much connectivity can be constructed on a minimal platform.

All of this has huge implications for parents and teens. But sadly, what I've just written here is unknown to 99.999% of parents and teens today. If you follow my blog posts, you know I'm trying hard to get the word out.

Meanwhile, maybe a kid will get lucky and have a few teachers or other adult mentors who make him think. It happened to me, and it can happen to other kids. Or not. Or a parent can proactively interact with the teen to encourage independent thinking.

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

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)

When Wisdom Isn't Enough - The Hard Work of Self-Improvement

Do you seek the kind of wisdom you find in that rare article, video or book - the kind that stimulates your mind and touches your heart - the kind that can change your life?

The fact that you're here reading this post on this blog indicates that you're a life-long learner, a person who is open to growing stronger as a person.

But I have a question for you...

When you feel inspired and motivated, is this enough for you? Or are you also interested in changing the way you act?

Because learning something important to you - even understanding it and agreeing with it - isn't the same thing as applying that knowledge in your life.

Knowing is not the same as doing.

Knowledge is good. It can help you make decisions. Even better, it can also lead to changing your behavior patterns, so you don't have to consciously figure out what to do. You can just do the right thing automatically.

But going from insight to action takes work, whether the action flows from a conscious decision or from an established behavior pattern.

So what do you want to do with the wisdom? Will you be happy to simply integrate it into your mind?

If you want to manifest the wisdom in your behavior, then here's what you'll need to do...

1. Consider what the wisdom teaches you.
2. Focus - Decide how you want to apply it in your life.
3. Action - Implement your plan.
4. Reflection - Think about what you did. Learn from your successes and mistakes.
5. Repeat this sequence again and again until your actions become habitual.

In life, when you're involved in everyday work and relationships, you usually don't have time to think things through. You just do what you usually do, the way you usually do it - out of habit. If you want to be effective in your relationships and your work, you need habits - behavior patterns - that work.

Unfortunately, most of us are a unique mixture of strengths and weaknesses. A lot of people take the attitude, "I am what I am," content to muddle through with the habits they acquired over a lifetime.

Other people get frustrated when things don't go well and are willing to change to get better results.

But change doesn't automatically come with a sincere desire to change. Wisdom may be the first step, but it isn't enough. Motivation and inspiration may help move you forward, but they aren't enough either. You gotta do the reps.

To improve a serve in tennis, a player will have to repeat the new technique hundreds of times. Regardless of the sport, all players understand that they need to "do the reps." A quarterback has to throw countless footballs to receivers racing down the field. A swimmer has to swim countless laps, performing the stroke the way the coach explained it. And not just reps in practice. Reps in real, competitive situations. Likewise, if you want to change a behavior pattern, you'll need to repeat the action many, many times in your life.

Because for an action to become habitual, you have to rewire you brain. Each repetition stimulates the brain cells to grow tiny filaments (called dendrites) until they connect with all the brain cells involved in the action. When all the cells are interconnected, the circuit is complete. And an action that used to require concentration now has the wiring to make it super-efficient and automatic.

Mental rehearsal can help speed the process, and it helps to observe others doing the action right. But you can't ingrain a new way of doing things sitting on the bench. You have to get into the game and apply what you know in the real world.

You gotta do the reps.

And if you do, the wiring for the old way of doing things will still be in your head; but the new wiring will be more efficient, more effective and more satisfying. So you'll do it the new way instead. It will be as if you built a new superhighway in your brain. You'll automatically use it instead, and the clunky old country road you used to take will fall into disuse.

It helps to have coaching, encouragement and accountability. But in the end, changing behavior involves a lot of work. Basically it's simple. You figure out what you should be doing, and then you actually do it - over and over again until you rewire your brain and the new pattern becomes a habit.

I can still hear the motivational speaker saying, "You really gotta wanna." And the high school coach who said, "Do you really want it, kid? You gotta want it bad."

So...how important is the wisdom to you? Will you do the work to manifest it in your life?

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

Reading - It Can Help Your Teen Build a Fine Mind

I have a friend whose dad had a personal library of several thousand books. When my friend was about ten years old, his dad enrolled him in a speed-reading course. Soon afterward, he began reading the classics of world literature.

One great book at a time, he became a passionate reader. As a consequence, he began to ponder the meaning of life. The more he read, the more thoughtful and independent his mind became. At age 15 he left home to pursue a life as a painter. And he continued to read, roughly a book every day for the rest of his life.

At age 70, he is now a world-famous artist. And his personal library contains over 18,000 volumes, almost exclusively nonfiction. And he has one of the most interesting minds I've ever encountered.

Of course, his mind isn't the product of a formal education. He didn't graduate from high school, and he didn't attend an esteemed university. He is a self-made man who reads every day and continues to pursue his passion with intensity. The last time I visited him I saw a copy of William H. Gass's latest collection of literary criticism, Life Sentences, lying on his coffee table, bookmarked at chapter four.

If you are raising children and want the best for them, a college education is not the ultimate answer. Don't get me wrong. A college education can have major benefits. It can expose kids to ideas, give them learning skills and punch their ticket for that first job out of college. But you need to know that very few professors consciously try to teach kids how to think. As they see it, that's not what they're getting paid the big bucks for. Their job is to pass along the latest information, to give them the answers.

The problem is, even the best knowledge, information and answers can't guarantee success. In the world of action, it comes down to what you do with what you've learned - action - exercising good judgment and decision-making.

If your child ever does acquire good judgment, it will have to be because you stimulated your child's mind in youth. Or maybe they got lucky and other adults, such as teachers, coaches, counselors, relatives, or other adults who cared about your child encouraged her to think for herself.

When I was in high school, I had a friend who had a fine mind. He knew things I didn't know. He understood things I didn't understand. He had learned to do things I could not do. I admired him and wanted to be like him. I discovered that he read a lot. So I began to read the books he recommended. It was quite an awakening. And it happened at the right time, while my brain's prefrontal cortex, which handles comprehension, analysis, judgment, decision making, planning and organization, was in the sensitive period of development that begins and ends during adolescence.

I was lucky to have a few influences like that. I didn't start reading voraciously until I was 16, but after that I read obsessively.

I earned my Ph.D. from Duke University in 1977, but I like to tell young people that as glorious as that experience was, 99% of what I know today I've learned since then - on my own, from reading.

Reading benefits a young person two important ways. First, it helps build his vocabulary. Having words for things is essential to creating and organizing concepts in the mind. No language, no knowledge.

Second, the content of books can reveal insights which make the child reflect on important issues, to help the child use his or her mind to connect the dots - while programming the prefrontal cortex for critical thinking.

Language. High-level thinking. These are the two mental abilities that separate us from all other species on Earth. And you can get these life-changing powers from reading the best books.

Encourage your kid to read.

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

I'm Being Held Accountable to Improve the Way I Work

In my company, we "eat our own dog food." Meaning, we actually use the products and services we create. We do this to get insights about how to make our stuff better. Plus, we benefit personally from doing so!

The products I'm referring to are online self-development systems based on a new technology called ProStar Coach. One of my favorite exercises is called the "Reflection Exercise." A part of the Focus-Action-Reflection behavior change cycle, the Reflection Exercise uses five "magic" questions to help someone learn from experience. The idea is to complete the exercise after taking action to improve an area of ability. Doing so can accelerate the ingraining of a new behavior pattern.

The area I'm trying to improve is the personal strength called INITIATIVE. What I'm trying to do is ingrain the work habit of starting my day by working on my top priority first, before I do anything else. I'm making this effort because most of the other things I could be doing are fun and interesting time-wasters. I'm not always successful. But today I was, and I decided to do a Reflection Exercise about it...

1. What happened...

I've been trying to establish a pattern of "hitting the ground running" each morning by attacking my top priority first, before doing anything else. I did this today and by noon I had drafted two more chapters on my book.

2. Why it happened that way...

I think the content is already in my head, and getting my fingers moving on the keyboard causes it to spill out. Plus, I've already written some good draft content about these chapters.


3. The consequences...

I made huge progress right away. I felt wonderful about it. My self-esteem and self-confidence were boosted, I could feel it.

4. How I would handle a similar situation in the future...

Keep on doing it! Plus, maybe I should try kicking off the afternoon after lunch this way, too!

5. PLANNED ACTION - My next steps...

I will try attacking a new chapter right after lunch.

After answering the questions I clicked the "Save to Learning Archive" button, then the "Request Input" button to share the exercise with my accountability coach. She usually responds with ideas or encouragement.

My accountability coach is Paula, one of my business partners. I selected her because I knew she would always call me at the appointed time and ask me if I did what I said I was going to do. It's amazing how motivating these calls are. It's like getting on the scales once a week in front of my peers at Weight Watchers.

Today was a big success, but I've stumbled in the past. The trick is to not give up, to gradually build up more successes than failures. I know that if I persist, eventually "hitting the ground running" each morning will become an unconscious habit.

And how cool that will be!

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

A Successful, Happy Life - It Takes More Than You Think

A successful, happy life. I guess everybody knows it takes more than money and beauty. Just ask Bernie Madoff and Kim Kardashian.

And guess what...It also takes a lot more than a good education and business know-how.

I try to stress this point with parents. Yes, kids need a good education. They need basic language and math skills and they need to understand how the world works. So they should pay attention in school, try to learn and get good grades, so they can get into a good university. And when they enter the workforce, they should try to learn the business from the ground up. Parents who care about their kids know this. Most of them are sacrificing like crazy to help pay for college expenses.

What most of them don't appreciate is that while it helps to get a college degree and land a good job, these aren't the magic keys that unlock the door to a happy, successful life. Parents could make all these sacrifices and years later their child's life could take a downturn. Failed careers, failed marriages, and worse...

It happens all the time.

The reason is simple. To build strong relationships and prevail against adversity, a person needs to develop skills and strengths that are almost never taught in the home or in schools. This model illustrates the areas of ability a person needs to develop:

Copyright © 2011, Performance Support Systems

Life skills - Practical and commonsense know-how, such as cooking, etiquette, using tools and machines, safety, hygiene, health, fitness, maintenance, etc.

Critical thinking skills - The ability to understand why, cause and effect, relationships, the big picture; the ability to envision future consequences, control impulses, create action plans and manage execution. Schools used to do a better job of this; now they focus more on fact memorization to pass state achievement tests.

People skills - Dozens of skills to get along with others, communicate, lead, sell, influence, etc.

Personal strengths - Dozens of behavior patterns that enable a person to do the hard things to deal with challenges and adversity, e.g., patience, perseverance, courage, composure, integrity, optimism, creativity, and many more.

Some bottom lines...

• The core areas of ability are deal-makers and deal-breakers. They matter far more than an education and business know-how.
• People don't receive development in these core areas in the classroom. And practically no parents know how to nurture them.
• Nearly everyone becomes an adult without much conscious guidance and development in the core areas.
• Some adults sense their inadequacies once they begin raising families and competing in the world of work. Some of them try to play "catch-up" in these areas. We call this "personal development." Most never do catch up.
• An outside-the-box concept: Teenagers working on personal development. Yes, it adds to their "full plate," but it's important and they can do it. Many of them are intelligent, success-driven and are working on getting smarter. Getting stronger in the core areas of ability will give them a huge edge while in school and especially when they begin facing the challenges of adult life.

This is why we developed ProStar Coach, an unprecedented online virtual coaching service. It's the world's most effective self-development system for working on core strengths.

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

A National Tragedy - What Teens Aren't Being Taught

A lot of interesting things have happened to me over the years - fodder for stories. Today as I was reflecting about what parents do and do not teach their teens, I remembered one of those gems.

I was 22 years old, and it was the morning after my bride and I had returned from our honeymoon road trip out West. For the first time in my life I asked my wife a simple question I would ask thousands of times throughout my life: "What would you like to do for breakfast?"

"I don't know. What would you like?" she replied.

I decided to keep it simple and easy. "How about a couple fried eggs?"

Then she told me she wasn't sure how to cook fried eggs. We discussed a few more options, and then the truth came out. She didn't know how to cook anything. Not even a boiled egg.

At the time, I didn't ask myself why this was so. I was a West Point graduate - a problem solver. The solution to this problem was to show my wife how to fry eggs. That was the beginning of a learning journey for her. In the years ahead, she would become a decent cook.

But sometime later I did reflect on that. I gained sufficient perspective to ask myself this question: Why didn't I know before I married her that she couldn't cook? The answer is, it's complicated. She lived 2,000 miles from West Point and we wanted to get married immediately after graduation. Ah, the passion of youth. I should have gotten to know her better.

And then: Her mother was a gourmet cook. How is it possible that she didn't teach her only daughter a single thing about cooking? Kind of a "Ripley's Believe It Or Not" amazing-but-true situation. I never received a satisfactory answer. Her mother has since passed away, and my first wife has gone on to a better life. (Just to set the record straight, the divorce had nothing to do with her cooking.)

Today, I think a lot about the things that teenagers don't learn. The purpose of raising a teenager is to help prepare the child to grow into the kind of adult who will be happy and successful in life. Neither teens nor their parents seem to be doing much to make that happen. I think it's partially because they have the erroneous idea that what teens need to know they learn in school.

And of course that isn't true. The truth is, most of what kids need to learn as they prepare for life they have to acquire outside the classroom. For example:

• A heads-up about what will happen during the teen years and how to deal with it
• Personal strengths
• Skills for dealing with people
• Critical thinking skills (these can be nurtured in the classroom but all too often they aren't)
• Service and spiritual development
• Life skills such as grooming, fitness, nutrition, using tools, safety, etc.

Imagine the enormous advantage a teen would have if he or she was coached in these areas before starting a career! But the current paradigm for educating teens doesn't include personal development.

I've talked to hundreds of adults about their teen years, and only one told me that he received anything like "the talk." He said what his uncle told him one day at breakfast was probably the most important conversation of his life. None were taught people skills. Only a few were lucky enough to have learned life skills. Some remembered favorite teachers or professors who "taught me how to think."

Yes, it's a "full plate," as I like to put it. So much learning can happen, and so little learning is actually happening. What happens is that when people become mature adults, they realize what they don't know and try to catch up. Some try, that is. Very few succeed. For example, I'm one of the most intense life-long learners I know, and in my mid-sixties I'm still learning things I should have learned when I was a teenager. My parents were good people, but for some reason they didn't see it as their job  to teach me stuff. Ignorance isn't bliss. It's pain.

Trying to help teens and their parents make the most of the adolescent time of life has become my passion. It's what I think about every day, and it's what I write about. I know there are many parents out there who would do anything, sacrifice anything for their children to help them grow into happy, successful adults.

These are the people I write for.

Books that explain the "full plate" - and a whole lot more - to teenagers...

Conversations with the Wise Aunt (for girls)

Conversations with the Wise Uncle (for boys)

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

The 5 Top People Skills for Parents of Teenagers

There are five people/communication skills that are so important to parenting a teenager that the failure to use any one of them - even just once - can cause problems in a relationship. My research of the literature has taught me that there are actually nearly 100 different people skills. In ProStar Coach, we focus on two dozen of them. In my free coaching ebook, we focus on eight people skills. But if you're parenting or mentoring a teen, you can narrow the skill set even further. These five are crucial.

Listening. Not just paying attention and hearing what the teen says, but observing the nonverbal messages, too, and checking to make sure that what you think the teen is trying to communicate is actually what they intended. When you don't listen this way, you can misunderstand. A teen who is ignored or misunderstood is likely to assume that the adult is either clueless or doesn't care - thoughts which can produce additional negative emotions.

Stimulating Thinking. Most adults think they know more than the teen, and visa-versa. In my opinion, the most important thing an adult can do for teens to prepare them for adult life is to get them to learn how to think for themselves. This is not the same thing as giving advice or solving a problem for a teen. This is about asking them questions that get them thinking about their situation.

Guiding Learning. A lot happens to a young person during adolescence. A secret: just because it happens to them doesn't mean they learn anything from it. The skill involves asking five questions that guides a person to learn from an experience. Like the above skill, it stimulates critical thinking.

Giving Feedback. Because teens are young and unformed and enduring a difficult time of life, their self-esteem is vulnerable. And low self-esteem can make them susceptible to peer pressure. Criticizing teens makes self-esteem worse and they resent it. Instead, giving feedback, both constructive and positive, focuses on behavior in a way that avoids criticism.

Giving Encouragement. Teens make a lot of mistakes. They have a lot of problems. They fail a lot! They have a lot of bad days. People need encouragement during the teen years more than any other time of life. Encouragement can help young people recover from what they perceive as adversity. If you do it right.

Have I ever known a parent who had all five skills? Sorry, no. When my boys were teens, I had two of the skills. But I rarely used them. And so it goes.

Have I ever known a parent who had just one of these skills? Yes, but rarely. Very rarely.

So this is where we are today. It's a grim situation, and a big part of the problem with teens doesn't lie with the teens at all. It's the parents. They make gross communication mistakes 95% of the time, with awful consequences - problematic parent-teen relationships.

So I'm just going to throw down the gauntlet here. If you're a parent of a teenager, I challenge you to take responsibility to improve the way you interact with your child. A good start would be to click on the links above and learn more about the skills. Another would be to get the free ebook on coaching skills. Depending on how much you care about your teen, you've got work to do.

Also, consider giving one of these books to your teen...

For girls - Conversations with the Wise Aunt

For boys - Conversations with the Wise Uncle

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

Growing into a Strong Adult - A Teenager's Full Plate

The bill for a college education these days can reach well into six figures. For the parents who are focused on getting their kids a college education, managing this expense is a daunting challenge. What's a parent to do? As they make sacrifices, they encourage their teens to make good grades and stay out of trouble.

What they really want is for their child to grow up to be a successful adult and raise a happy family. A college education seems to be an essential step towards that goal.

While kids should take their college education seriously and while it may help them get a decent job, a degree - by itself - has little to do with long-term success. It's easy to graduate from college without learning much of anything that will help in a career. Can you imagine a college graduate who hasn't become a lifelong learner? Someone who lacks self-confidence, patience, courage, composure, creativity, initiative or any of the many strengths one needs to strive against adversity and prevail? A college education isn't focused on fostering those strengths. Any academic will tell you that this is not a university's mission, not its purpose.

It's not high school's purpose, either.

And few parents appreciate that it's their job to help their kids build these strengths. Very few, indeed.

Some kids do learn to strive, though. It can happen accidentally when their personal life is challenging and they're faced with having to do hard things. It can also happen in high school sports, which are often microcosms of life.

Or not. Some kids don't rise to the challenge. They're beaten down by adversity, or they fail to meet the challenges of their sport. Most coaches feel they already have their hands full teaching conditioning, the game, skills, and strategies for winning. Which leaves little time for mentoring the athletes to become strong, mature adults.

I once spoke with a young woman I'll call Maria about her teen years. Only 24, she recently married for the second time and has two children. She's working as a legal assistant and is given responsibilities far beyond the norm. She's planning to get additional training and certification. Her goal: to create a stable life for her kids, so they never have to experience the horrors she did as a teen. Her mother, an alcoholic manic-depressive, divorced several times by the time Maria was a teen. Then her mother formed a lesbian relationship with a woman who dominated Maria. Her mother's drinking and suicide attempts made Maria's home life so chaotic that she had trouble keeping friends. On her own initiative, she got involved in her studies, church, art, and sports. At age 16 she abandoned her mother to live with her natural father. In other words, she dealt with her situation. She found supportive adults and created a strong self by struggling with her adversity.

Good for her. This is a hard way to get strong, though. Another teen might be crushed by an experience like this.

In other words, there's more to growing up and preparing yourself for adult life than staying out of trouble and getting admitted to a good university. A kid is either working on getting stronger or not. And by the time the young person is 22, well, he or she isn't a kid anymore. Hello, adulthood. In addition to formal education, here's what a teen can be working on to arrive as an adult already strong:

• Personal strengths
• People skills
• Critical thinking skills
• Life skills

I also spoke with a friend who has a niece that became an adult without becoming strong as a person, without acquiring any of these skills. Her mother was an alcoholic and her father was addicted to gambling. Otherwise, her parents were nice people. But as parents, they had no idea what to do. Put food on the table and shout at the kids when they didn't behave. That was pretty much it. My friend's niece got married at age 17, had kids, and became an alcoholic herself. Now, at the age of 38, she spends most of her time in bed at her mother's house.

The point is, if someone becomes an adult without gaining these strengths and skills, they'll have a lot of catching up to do. This is what happens to almost everyone. The problem is, this means unlearning and recreating yourself. A lot of people never catch up.

What could be more important than helping a young person develop into a strong adult? It's tragic that as adults we leave so much of this parenting and mentoring to chance. It's a shame that a child has to be an at-risk kid and "in the system" before adults get concerned and want to do something about it.

There's more to preparing for future success in life than getting good grades and staying out of trouble. Teens have a full plate. They have a lot more on their learning plate than they know. And more than most parents, teachers and coaches know.

The full plate - and a LOT more - are explained in these engaging books for teens...

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 . (Permission to use image purchased from fotolia.net)

Denny Coates Interviewed by Jonathan Lederman on 'Get Motivated' Radio Show

I was interviewed recently by Jonathan Lederman on his weekly "Get Motivated" web radio show. It was an interesting conversation! I got to talk about some of my favorite subjects - How the brain learns, how people learn skills and break bad habits.

Listen to the recording...

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

Parents - Do Kids Need Adversity to Make Them Stronger?

A friend of mine and I were swapping stories about our experiences in the Army. Most of them had to do with the amazing challenges we faced. We had some good laughs.

But the theme of these stories was a serious one. The adversities helped shape us. They made us strong to deal with the problems and crises we face in our businesses today. My friend related this familiar quote from Friedrich Nietzsche: "What does not destroy me, makes me stronger."

"But that isn't true for everyone. Sometimes adversity breaks people. Look at the guys coming back from the Middle East with PSTD. A lot of them are committing suicide," I said.

"Right. It doesn't make everyone stronger. Some of my buddies from Vietnam still have problems after all these years. But not everyone is ruined by the stress of combat. I wasn't. You weren't. It made us stronger. I think you have to already be strong when you go to war to be stronger coming back from it."

That too was confirmed by our stories. We had already faced a lot of adversity before going in to combat. We were ready.

And then my friend said something surprising. "One way to take the measure of a person is to imagine this scenario. Say a person was taken away from his life, stripped naked, all his belongings taken away, including his name and his identity. And say he was deposited in the middle of a foreign country on the other side of the world. What do you think would happen to him?"

I thought about it, and then I said. "I guess it would depend on who he was, how strong he was as a person. Depending on whatever personal strengths he had, he might eventually thrive. Or he might be crushed."

"Exactly."

"If they dropped you in a strange land, they better watch out," I laughed. "In five years, you'd own several businesses and be running for office."

"You got that right," he said.

We talked more about personal strength, about how kids need to start getting strong early on if they want to be strong as adults. And about how parents aren't doing their kids any favors by giving them everything they want and protecting them from adversity.

"Kids need a chance learn about getting knocked down and getting back up. Parents these days think they have to shelter their kids from that. It's a mistake," he said.

"I think if parents want to prepare their kids for life, then they need to expose them to how the real world works early and often. Put them in situations that parallel what will happen to them as adults."

"Team sports are good. Getting a job is good. Earning money to pay for what you want is good. That's how life works."

Useful insights?

Or just a couple of old farts sitting on the front porch telling war stories?

I had the thought that most parents these days just want to keep the peace, believing that success is keeping their kids out of trouble, safe and happy. And if you want to be a super-parent, you save up for their college education. I don't think many parents are asking this question: What am I doing to give my kids practice for what they'll have to do when they're grown up?

Another thing they could do - give their teens these books...

Conversations with the Wise Aunt (for girls)





Conversations with the Wise Uncle (for boys)

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