The 10 Dumbest Mistakes - Part Three

Chapter Four – Personalizing

Like all the other mistakes cited in this book, personalizing is an equal opportunity error.

An over the top sports fan might say, “You insult the Cowboys, you insult me!”

Recognizing the situation for what it is will help.

(As humans) we monitor our acceptance, our approval rating, our reception as keenly as any politician among us does … In a myriad of ways we constantly ask: “How am I doing?”

Of course, we do not want to go to the other extreme. The world would be a terrible place if we took nothing personally.

When we perceive an insult where none was meant, the pain you feel is self-inflicted.

Because she is insecure about how her mother-in-law feels about her and so she is scanning for negatives.

Personalizing keeps anger alive. Hurt leads to anger.

Personalizing can be exhausting. It leaves little time or energy for productive pursuits.

You are actually rejecting yourself before anyone else gets a chance to do it.

He has assumed that the business owner's conclusion about the service is a conclusion about Joe's abilities or Joe.

Personalizing leads to feeling guilty. It's unfair to do it to yourself.

You many well conclude that since you are responsible for that child being under your roof, you are responsible ever after for every single thing the child does. But that's not true.

We may not like it. But that doesn't mean the children are doing it to “get us.”

Three-year-olds who love being with either parent along may protest when both parents are together.

The teen is trying to show independence.

Driving a car is like being in control of a small kingdom, and when other motorists don't show the king or queen proper respect, most of us have a tendency to want to say: “Off with their heads.”

It is not necessary to approve of every other driver to avoid the personalizing mistake.

When bad things happen, a person who personalizes tend to think, “What did I do to deserve this?”

The key to reducing the problems caused by Personalizing is simply to stop, review what you are thinking, and analyze those thoughts. S-l-o-w d-o-w-n and think about … Consider whether there could be any other explanation … The idea is to merely make yourself aware of when some other explanation is plausible.

“That's just making excuses for people,” you might say. And that could be. But, since the truth is not known, it makes as much sense to consider alternative explanations that do not imply a personal insult rather than an explanation that creates anger, hurt, or embarrassment … Give people the benefit of the doubt.

Do people blame you for outcomes of all kinds? Of course. Sometimes it's deserved and sometimes not.

As you mentally review the possible outcome of teaching that jerk a lesson, you may well decide that, although you are fully justified in being angry, you could lose more than you gain by attempting to confront him … The question “Then what?” may have more than one possible answer … It is always possible to pick our fights.

If something is trivial once, repeating it does not make it more significant.

You do not have to take personal responsibility for his inability to appreciate good food.

Chapter Five – Believing Your Press Agent

People who believe they can walk on water have a way of sinking over their heads.

Yes, optimism is a good thing. But, just as a proper dose of vitamins is helpful but an overdose of the same vitamins can be toxic, too much optimism can get you into trouble.

Too much positive thinking can hurt you.

If you are successful at everything you try, your reality is pleasant indeed. But most of us are not equally adept at everything.

In his first book about himself, Donald Trump bragged about his ability to make deals in which he acquired hotels, casinos, and other assets. In his second book, Trump admitted that good though he was at deal making, he hadn't paid enough attention to running those assets after he bought them.

A man's second wife is upset with him for buying his daughter a car. But, because the man believes his own press agent, he does not feel he owes the new wife any explanation.

A belief in your own superiority can lead to blaming others when problems arise.

When you have achieved something, and others recognize that achievement, it's easy to feel you no longer have to prove yourself.

We aren't going to get rewards based on our proud past (aka Don't rest on your laurels)

When times are tough, some people react by taking up residence in the past … If you are too rigid in defining what you can accept, you are likely to fail to see opportunities when they are.

Your mother has told you all your life how wonder you are, and would she lie? No, of course not (This can cause you to believe your own press) Tom grew up believing he was always right. Negotiation, explanation, and compromise were for other people. Never for him.

Friends are expected to flatter and praise (which can cause you to start believing your own press)

Flattery will get you everywhere, so it is said (And some bosses start to believe the hype) Yes men are more popular with some executives than subordinates who are prepared to argue.

Many people so dislike being the bearer of negative news. So, sometimes it is the people you work for that contribute to this thinking mistake.

Sometimes the voice of privilege is the cause. A sense of entitlement. “He was born on third base and thinks he hit a triple.”

It can be the voice of religion, a kind of divine protection, which causes you to be convinced of your own invincibility.

A teacher may say: “You can be anything you want to be.”

Two types of people are most prone to these internal hype artists: those who simply choose to believe that they are wonderful because someone, usually a parent, has told them so. And those who have legitimately achieved at a high level at on point in their lives and use that as the lifelong basis for everything they do.

It's not that revving up the can-do spirit isn't helpful. There is great power in what psychologists call positive affirmation … But this sort of thing is only for the short term.

Considering the downside of anything is not a cheerful business. But it's part of facing reality.

You may have to work hard to make your dreams come true.

A lot of life depends on how you look at it. A Marine General told a reporter, “We are not retreating. We're just advancing in a different direction.” In ordinary life as in war, one is sometimes forced to retreat … Step back to proceed again.

The trick in dealing with press agents is learning how to enjoy all the compliments they pay without being controlled by them.

Buy based on your assessment of a product, not on the salesperson's assessment of you.

Every emperor could use at least one child around.

Purely thinking positive thoughts can backfire (This happens to be the thesis of Gabriele Oettingen's book Rethinking Positive Thinking)

The true winning attitude is a realistic one. It is confidence backed by an open mind. It is a willingness to take responsibility for the efforts required.

The 10 Dumbest Mistakes - Part Two

Chapter Two – The Chicken Little Syndrome

(This has everything to do with jumping to conclusions)

This is the sort of behavior known as catastrophizing. The mind leaps to believe the worst. Disaster appears to lie jump around the corner. Psychologist Albert Ellis calls it “awfulizing,” because the individuals involved imagine a consequence so awful that they will not be able to stand it.

(Chick Little Syndrome causes that “sinking feeling” people get when they anticipate bad things)

This thought was so terrifying that their bodies responded with a feeling of numbness, or palpitations, or chills.

There are all sorts of situations in which it is easy enough to lose your cool.

A common tendency of those who believe that disaster is unavoidable is to simply give up.

This is the infamous self-fulfilling prophecy.

All Chicken Little and his friends have on their minds is escaping a falling sky. So they don't question the fox's offer of refuge but unthinkingly go with him.

All this is not a call for what is generally known as positive thinking. Far from it. This entire book is a call to realistic thinking.

More often than not, a hasty conclusion turns out to be wrong.

Realistic thinkers do not deny that the worst is possible, but they also don't assume the worst is guaranteed without investigating first.

This is what we commonly refer to as making a mountain out of a molehill.

As psychiatrist Dr Aaron Beck discovered in his groundbreaking research, what happens is that you quite literally talk yourself into that worst conclusion.

(Our internal conversations) take place not in minutes but in seconds, maybe even milliseconds … Dr Beck calls these quick-flying thoughts “automatic thoughts.”

She is so busy thinking of how terrible will be the outcome she can't think clearly. Her automatic thoughts are working against her.

Automatic thoughts are perfectly normal.

You can easily replay the tape of your thoughts if you concentrate on doing so.

Learning how to argue with your automatic thoughts will help you avoid those self-fulfilling prophecies of disaster.

This does not mean you have to constantly monitor every thought you have. It doesn't mean analyzing everything you do.

Develop your skill so that you can call on that skill when you need it.

The first – and most important – technique is checking for meaning.

We like to think that we always say what we mean and mean what we say. But, if you think about it, you'll have to admit this isn't true.

Often you don't really mean what you are thinking.

(If you are struggling with jumping to conclusions, and the Chicken Little Syndrome, try to make a habit of asking yourself “Is that really true?”)

It is so helpful to realize that catastrophizing can occur.

Another technique is questioning the evidence.

The Chicken Little Syndrome can occur at any time.

Writing down your thoughts helps you to reach them.

You know the answers. You just have to remember to ask yourself the questions.

What seems to be a dire event seems less so when you see it in writing.

It may help you to imagine yourself trying to convince somebody else that things are not as bad as you claim … Play your own defense attorney … you need to review the evidence.

If you conclusion has not happened in the past, why assume the situation is different this time?

Since she does not know which, if any, of the explanations is so, why believe – and get hysterical about – the worst one?

When examining a catastrophic scene, that you have drawn in your mind, ask yourself, “What is wrong with this picture?”

The object is always to question that first disastrous conclusion. The object is to resist the temptation to rush right down the mental shortcut that takes you from a single negative thought to a conclusion that disaster is imminent and unavoidable.

There is no shortage of paths to travel when you allow yourself to take that shortcut to disaster. When you analyze your thoughts, check to see whether you are heading down one of these troublesome paths:

The Path of Global Effect – You take a single failure in one segment of your life and draw conclusions from it for your whole life.

The Path of Generalization – You say to yourself: “That didn't work well this time,” which means it will never work.

The Path of Imitation – Imitation might be called the Turkey Lurky effect because it involves adopting, without any examination or questioning, the catastrophic conclusions of others.

The Path of Magnification – You make a mountain out of a molehill. You make a small mistake or have a minor negative experience and assume that it will have major consequences. This is a favorite path of hypochondriacs.

Catastrophizers seem to have the ability to transmit their tension to others.

What we view is the worst that can happen is a highly individual matter.

There's a joke told about a hypochondriac who dies at the age of ninety-eight and has inscribed on his tombstone, “See, I told you I was sick.”

Realistic thinking means that you don't magnify the results of a single negative event without investigating.

It's reasonable to be self-protective … Simply giving yourself, and events, the benefit of the doubt will open your mind to possible solutions and opportunities … True protection lies in realistically assessing your situation.

Chapter Three – Mind Reading

Deep down, all of us know that mind reading is either impossible or at least extraordinarily rare.

It's an illusions that can occur in two ways: (1) assuming that we can tell what other people are thinking or (2) assuming that other people not only can, but should, know exactly what we are thinking without having to be told.

It's true that you can often anticipate the wishes or actions of someone you know well. But trouble lies in wait if you assume that you can know how someone will react every time.

Even with someone you know very well you cannot count on being right all the time. People have a way of being unpredictable.

Rachel was angry because her husband had failed to fulfill her unspoken wishes and expectations … The bottom line is that Rachel cannot know what Tom is thinking unless she asks him. He cannot know what she is thinking unless she tells him.

Making assumptions is a form of mental shorthand, and it's extremely helpful in keeping life moving along.

Psychologists and psychiatrists learn how to turn off their professional ear in purely social situations so that they are not constantly pondering: “What did he really mean by that?”

Doting pet owners are inclined to endow their birds and animals with human attributes and read their minds accordingly … It's normal but it's not mind reading.

We draw from all sorts of cues and clues in our detecting efforts. We attribute meaning to what we see and hear … But looks can be deceiving … Tears may flow from disappointment or happiness.

It's important to remember that no matter how we go about assembling the evidence from which we draw conclusions, one thing about them is always true, they only provide a partial picture.

(Humans tend to have a need for closure. Wheel of Fortune has turned it into a game.)

Remember – Mind reading gets us into trouble when we believe it is something we can do: with everybody, perfectly, all the time. What you actually can do is to guess the thoughts of: some people, with some accuracy, some of the time.

Let's list some of the most common ways people who assume they know what is in another's mind can go wrong:

– You draw a conclusion about what someone else is thinking based on what you would think in that same position.

– You draw a conclusion based on past behavior.

– You reach your conclusion based on what you expect, having written the end of the story first.

– You may draw a conclusion based on what you want the answer to be.

– You draw a conclusion based on insufficient data.

– Your conclusion ignores the existence of cultural or personality differences.

– You are misreading visual or verbal cues.

– The object of your mind reading is sending false messages.

When you send a message in code, you can't be sure the other person can decipher it.

A mother knows quite often but not always.

Once you are willing to accept the fact that mind reading does not always work, you are well on the way to knowing better when it matters.

A first line of defense is simply to identify the mistake. Ask yourself, “Am I mind reading?”

As with every thinking mistake, it helps to write down your assumptions if you can.

Particularly useful here is a trio of techniques known as developing alternatives in thought, developing alternatives in feeling, and developing alternatives in action.

Since the boss has not said what he thinks, alternative conclusions are equally valid.

It may be possible to test your perceptions in small ways.

It can be helpful to imagine a different image for yourself and others. Picture having a good time … Practice … Self-fulfilling prophecies can work two ways.

On occasion, giving up the mind reading mistake means speaking up in a direct way … Clear, spoken language.

Speaking up will guarantee that Marie will get the result she desires. But only by speaking up does Marie make it possible for that result to occur.

Most people would much prefer to win a contest without having to go through the bother of entering it, but that's not the way things generally work.

The most important mind to read is your own.

The 10 Dumbest Mistakes - Part One

As promised, I am passing along my notes (excerpts, really) from the book The 10 Dumbest Mistakes Smart People Make and How to Avoid Them

Introduction – How do we know which are the ten dumbest mistakes?

These are mistakes that inflict all manner of needless emotional suffering.

We are talking about very specific mistakes in thinking that create problems for us, worsen our existing problems, or make it more difficult to find problem solutions.

It is precisely when you are not thinking straight that you develop and deepen feelings of anxiety, misery, guilt, anger, and stress.

Cognitive therapists differ from other schools of therapy in the emphasis placed on the role that “thinking straight” plays in relieving emotional suffering.

The debate centers on what matters most: feelings, actions or thoughts.

Undoubtedly, the way you feel is important.

Experience has shown that it is possible to learn how to behave in more productive ways – and still feel miserable.

What sets cognitive therapy apart is that it combines all the pieces.

No matter what others have done to you in the past, you don't have to punish or forgive them to allow yourself to move on.

It's always tempting to blame others … you have to say: “It's up to me.”

You can change the way you think about the events in your life.

Our emotions and our actions are not separate from our thoughts … Thinking is the gateway to our emotions.

Different thoughts produce different emotions.

The way you think about your situation determines how you feel about it.

You sometimes think in ways that hurt you (No matter how smart you are)

What all the mistakes described in the chapters of this book have in common is:

1. They occur in our thought processes

2. They cause us great difficulty

3. They make us feel miserable

4. They are relatively easy to avoid

5. They are reactions we would avoid if we thought about them in a clear and reasonable manner

Most of us posses sufficient common sense to deal with life's crises and challenges.

To avoid making these common thinking mistakes we need a set of smart thinking tools that enable us to push back on that emotion and return our common sense.

Many actions we take seem like a good idea at the time.

Not so long ago, a researcher asked a group of people who had been treated for skin cancer if they would now avoid sitting outside in the sun. Many replied: “What? And lose my tan?”

What these techniques can do is combat those misjudgments and missteps you make only because you are not thinking clearly at the time.

These are the kinds of mistakes that can cloud your vision and distort your decision-making abilities.

(These mistakes) are dumb not because scientists have labeled them with that admittedly unscientific term, but because that is how most people who make such mistakes describe them to themselves.

This book will enable you to become aware of your own patterns of thinking.

Chapter One – Knowing Better

You hear about famous people who, given their position in life, must be pretty smart, doing incredibly dumb things that ruin a valued relationship, sink a business, cost a bundle, wipe out a chance for an important government office, cancel a lifetime a effort, or simply embarrass that famous someone all over the front page and the evening news. And you wonder: What were they thinking about?

One might assume equal wounds would cause equal pain. The difference lies in the way the two groups think about the wound … Anxiety increases pain.

It was not the event (divorce) that was determinative, but rather the way the individual involved saw the event.

Your frame of mind can change, quite literally, from one moment to the next.

Each of us has a stress threshold below which we operate quite well and beyond which our circuits begin to misfire.

People with stress thresholds at the low end of the scale tend to be quite anxious.

When you cross your threshold, your nerves and muscles seem to rise in protest.

These automatic modes are known as fight, flight, and freeze, and it's easy to understand how these may well have protected humankind in prehistoric times.

When you cross your stress threshold, your system is protectively reacting to a saber-toothed tiger, which means that, one way or the other, your brain is no longer under your voluntary control.

If you can decrease the occasions when you cross your stress threshold, you will increase your control over the events of your life. Fortunately, this is not hard to do.

You have a grinding headache or you didn't get any sleep the previous night or you have recently suffered a death in the family.

Ordinary stresses that Amy normally takes in stride now seem like personal insults.

Factors that result in lowering your stress threshold are known as vulnerability factors: situations that make you more vulnerable to stress … HALT: Hungry, Angry, Lonely, and Tired … Others include pain, illness, lack of sleep, substance abuse, a major loss, and a major change of any kind – even one for the better.

You may fall victim to mistakes in thinking when you feel lonely or when you have a headache or when you are rushed or when you have had too much to drink.

Break through those patterns and regain control.

Recognition is the first step to getting these troublesome reactions under control.

You may well argue that an insistence on perfection is a virtue. It is – sometimes. But, sometimes an insistence on perfection can become a vice, a trap.

Something only becomes a mistake if it gets in the way of what you want to do instead of helping you, or if it causes emotional pain.

You can literally unleash your brain to come to your rescue in times of stress.

This is a matter of making better use of our ability to reason, not of improving our ability to make excuses (something that most of us do only too well now).

There are times when your instincts need some help from your brain.

We have good and bad habits in the way we think.

You acquire your own particular schema by incorporating some or all of the rules to live by that you are taught.

Because we grow up believing that our particular schema is simply “the way things are,” we tend not to question it.

This is the bottom line: Harmful habits can be broken. You can break a bad habit of thought, just as you can break a bad habit of action.

Stop, look, and listen, and change

What this book can promise is that it will show you how to gain greater control of your own brain power and minimize these very common errors.

As often as not, several factors will intertwine … The twenty-five specific techniques in this book will help you … Many of these techniques are best when used in combination.

When you use the information this book provides, you will not only know better, you'll be able to live better, too.

OK, now what?

Recently, I suggested that we avoid the things which make us anxious. Actually, it was not me who made the suggestion. The idea comes from the great Aaron Beck.

Of course, we often resist the idea that we are anxious. Often times we just feel that we are uncomfortable. In this way we avoid things that make us uncomfortable. We tend to stay in our comfort zones.

To deal with the thoughts that make us anxious, or uncomfortable, I proposed The 2-D Solution. The two D's are: Distract and Dispute.

The distract part of the equation is relatively straightforward. Most people are experts at distracting themselves. We watch TV, or surf the internet, or excite ourselves with gambling or video gaming. All forms of distraction.

The hard part, the real challenge, is to dispute the negative thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that give us grief.

For the most part, the thoughts which give rise to bad feelings and actions are the result of distorted thinking. For various reasons, when are emotional brain is in the driver's seat we tend to make thinking mistakes. Very simply because the emotional brain was created for survival not accuracy.

And, as it turns out, these mistakes are quite systematic and predictable. So, the idea is to dispute these inaccurate, problematic thoughts. Of course, the question quickly becomes, “How do you do that?”

I wish I can give you an easy answer. Unfortunately, there are no easy answers when dealing with the mind. However, the good news is there are very real and very effective solutions to be had.

I have thought about this for a while and have decided that the best way to pass along these effective solutions is to give you an overview of an outstanding book.

In the past I have noticed a lot of my readers read the book notes/reports that I post. So, in hopes that I might help someone understand how to correct (dispute) their thinking mistakes, over the next few weeks I will be posting my notes from a great book by Arthur Freeman.

Dr. Arthur Freeman is the real deal. Having received his doctorate degree from Columbia University, Freeman then studied under the legends Albert Ellis and Aaron Beck. As a matter of fact, Aaron Beck wrote the preface to the book I will be posting.

The book is titled The 10 Dumbest Mistakes Smart People Make and How to Avoid Them. Simple and Sure Techniques for Gaining Greater Control of Your Life.

Trust me, it's good. So, stay tuned!

Addicted to Distraction

So, we have been talking about distraction. It is one of the two D's in The 2-D Solution. It is the easier of the two D's, and that is why we prefer to use it.

All this got me to thinking about an article I read, about this time, last year. The article was by Tony Schwartz and it was titled “Addicted to Distraction.” Here is the article in its entirety:

One evening early this summer, I opened a book and found myself reading the same paragraph over and over, a half dozen times before concluding that it was hopeless to continue. I simply couldn’t marshal the necessary focus.

I was horrified. All my life, reading books has been a deep and consistent source of pleasure, learning and solace. Now the books I regularly purchased were piling up ever higher on my bedside table, staring at me in silent rebuke.

Instead of reading them, I was spending too many hours online, checking the traffic numbers for my company’s website, shopping for more colorful socks on Gilt and Rue La La, even though I had more than I needed, and even guiltily clicking through pictures with irresistible headlines such as “Awkward Child Stars Who Grew Up to Be Attractive.”

During the workday, I checked my email more times than I cared to acknowledge, and spent far too much time hungrily searching for tidbits of new information about the presidential campaign, with the election then still more than a year away.

“The net is designed to be an interruption system, a machine geared to dividing attention,” Nicholas Carr explains in his book “The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains.” “We willingly accept the loss of concentration and focus, the division of our attention and the fragmentation of our thoughts, in return for the wealth of compelling or at least diverting information we receive.”

Addiction is the relentless pull to a substance or an activity that becomes so compulsive it ultimately interferes with everyday life. By that definition, nearly everyone I know is addicted in some measure to the Internet. It has arguably replaced work itself as our most socially sanctioned addiction.

According to one recent survey, the average white-collar worker spends about six hours a day on email. That doesn’t count time online spent shopping, searching or keeping up with social media.

The brain’s craving for novelty, constant stimulation and immediate gratification creates something called a “compulsion loop.” Like lab rats and drug addicts, we need more and more to get the same effect.

Endless access to new information also easily overloads our working memory. When we reach cognitive overload, our ability to transfer learning to long-term memory significantly deteriorates. It’s as if our brain has become a full cup of water and anything more poured into it starts to spill out.

I've known all of this for a long time. I started writing about it 20 years ago. I teach it to clients every day. I just never really believed it could become so true of me.

Denial is any addict’s first defense. No obstacle to recovery is greater than the infinite capacity to rationalize our compulsive behaviors. After years of feeling I was managing myself reasonably well, I fell last winter into an intense period of travel while also trying to manage a growing consulting business. In early summer, it suddenly dawned on me that I wasn’t managing myself well at all, and I didn’t feel good about it.

Beyond spending too much time on the Internet and a diminishing attention span, I wasn’t eating the right foods. I drank way too much diet soda. I was having a second cocktail at night too frequently. I was no longer exercising every day, as I had nearly all my life.

In response, I created an irrationally ambitious plan. For the next 30 days, I would attempt to right these behaviors, and several others, all at once. It was a fit of grandiosity. I recommend precisely the opposite approach every day to clients. But I rationalized that no one is more committed to self-improvement than I am. These behaviors are all related. I can do it.

The problem is that we humans have a very limited reservoir of will and discipline. We’re far more likely to succeed by trying to change one behavior at a time, ideally at the same time each day, so that it becomes a habit, requiring less and less energy to sustain.

I did have some success over those 30 days. Despite great temptation, I stopped drinking diet soda and alcohol altogether. (Three months later I’m still off diet soda.) I also gave up sugar and carbohydrates like chips and pasta. I went back to exercising regularly.

I failed completely in just one behavior: cutting back my time on the Internet.

My initial commitment was to limit my online life to checking email just three times a day: When I woke up, at lunchtime and before I went home at the end of the day. On the first day, I succeeded until midmorning, and then completely broke down. I was like a sugar addict trying to resist a cupcake while working in a bakery.

What broke my resolve that first morning was the feeling that I absolutely had to send someone an email about an urgent issue. If I just wrote it and pushed “Send,” I told myself, then I wasn’t really going online.

What I failed to take into account was that new emails would download into my inbox while I wrote my own. None of them required an immediate reply, and yet I found it impossible to resist peeking at the first new message that carried an enticing subject line. And the second. And the third.

In a matter of moments, I was back in a self-reinforcing cycle. By the next day, I had given up trying to cut back my digital life. I turned instead to the simpler task of resisting diet soda, alcohol and sugar.

Even so, I was determined to revisit my Internet challenge. Several weeks after my 30-day experiment ended, I left town for a monthlong vacation. Here was an opportunity to focus my limited willpower on a single goal: liberating myself from the Internet in an attempt to regain control of my attention.

I had already taken the first step in my recovery: admitting my powerlessness to disconnect. Now it was time to detox. I interpreted the traditional second step — belief that a higher power could help restore my sanity — in a more secular way. The higher power became my 30-year-old daughter, who disconnected my phone and laptop from both my email and the Web. Unburdened by much technological knowledge, I had no idea how to reconnect either one.

I did leave myself reachable by text. In retrospect, I was holding on to a digital life raft. Only a handful of people in my life communicate with me by text. Because I was on vacation, they were largely members of my family, and the texts were mostly about where to meet up at various points during the day.

During those first few days, I did suffer withdrawal pangs, most of all the hunger to call up Google and search for an answer to some question that arose. But with each passing day offline, I felt more relaxed, less anxious, more able to focus and less hungry for the next shot of instant but short-lived stimulation. What happened to my brain is exactly what I hoped would happen: It began to quiet down.

I had brought more than a dozen books of varying difficulty and length on my vacation. I started with short nonfiction, and then moved to longer nonfiction as I began to feel calmer and my focus got stronger. I eventually worked my way up to “The Emperor of All Maladies,” Siddhartha Mukherjee’s brilliant but sometimes complex biography of cancer, which had sat on my bookshelf for nearly five years.

As the weeks passed, I was able to let go of my need for more facts as a source of gratification. I shifted instead to novels, ending my vacation by binge-reading Jonathan Franzen’s 500-some-page novel, “Purity,” sometimes for hours at a time.

I am back at work now, and of course I am back online. The Internet isn’t going away, and it will continue to consume a lot of my attention. My aim now is to find the best possible balance between time online and time off.

I do feel more in control. I’m less reactive and more intentional about where I put my attention. When I’m online, I try to resist surfing myself into a stupor. As often as possible, I try to ask myself, “Is this really what I want to be doing?” If the answer is no, the next question is, “What could I be doing that would feel more productive, or satisfying, or relaxing?”

I also make it my business now to take on more fully absorbing activities as part of my days. Above all, I’ve kept up reading books, not just because I love them, but also as a continuing attention-building practice.

I've retained my longtime ritual of deciding the night before on the most important thing I can accomplish the next morning. That’s my first work activity most days, for 60 to 90 minutes without interruption. Afterward, I take a 10- to 15-minute break to quiet my mind and renew my energy.

If I have other work during the day that requires sustained focus, I go completely offline for designated periods, repeating my morning ritual. In the evening, when I go up to my bedroom, I nearly always leave my digital devices downstairs.

Finally, I feel committed now to taking at least one digital-free vacation a year. I have the rare freedom to take several weeks off at a time, but I have learned that even one week offline can be deeply restorative.

Occasionally, I find myself returning to a haunting image from the last day of my vacation. I was sitting in a restaurant with my family when a man in his early 40s came in and sat down with his daughter, perhaps 4 or 5 years old and adorable.

Almost immediately, the man turned his attention to his phone. Meanwhile, his daughter was a whirlwind of energy and restlessness, standing up on her seat, walking around the table, waving and making faces to get her father’s attention.

Except for brief moments, she didn’t succeed and after a while, she glumly gave up. The silence felt deafening.

The 2-D Solution

Last week I talked about avoidance behavior. I said, we avoid doing things that make us anxious and uncomfortable. We tend to stay in our comfort zones. We tend to take the path of least resistance.

When dealing with troubling thoughts and emotions the solution is a 2-D solution. Meaning, we can either: Distract or Dispute. Avoidance falls into the Distract category.

When dealing with tough situations, one option is we can distract ourselves so we do not dwell on the negative. The idea is to avoid thinking disturbing thoughts.

Sometimes this can be very adaptive. An example would be when good friends help keep you busy after a rough break-up or job-loss.

Then, sometimes distraction can be quite maladaptive. An example is when you choose (too frequently) to distract yourself with a vice. Drugs, alcohol, gambling, gaming, sex, facebook, etc. These distractions are easy to become depend upon.

And, of course, all strategies are capable of both positive and negative outcomes. Too much distraction and you never look for another job or relationship. A little vice can actually be adaptive. While excessive vice is usually destructive.

Teddy Roosevelt used the distraction strategy to outrun his depressive tendencies. He simply stayed very busy. And, by-and-large, it did work. One problem is, this strategy of distracting yourself can take a lot of energy to sustain.

When it came to his physical health, Roosevelt seems to have taken a number of shortcuts. He ended up dying of a heart attack at only 60 years of age.

The first step is to truly understand the meaning of the words adaptive and maladaptive. One way to think of it is that adaptive thoughts and behaviors help us achieve our goals, whatever those goals may be. And, maladaptive thoughts and behaviors inhibit the attainment of our goals.

Remember, goals do not just mean things like making money or losing weight. If your goal is to not be sad, it is maladaptive to sit and dwell on sad thoughts.

Sometimes the distract strategy is the right call. A shining example is when dealing with someone who is very mad. The key, again, is to know which direction you would like to head and then make decisions accordingly.

As pertains this blog, I hope you can see how adaptive behaviors are basically the definition of effectiveness! We will discuss the dispute strategy in the future.

Have an adaptive week :)

Avoidance is the Hallmark

Legendary psychologist Aaron Beck says, “Avoidance is a hallmark of anxiety.” We tend to avoid the things that make us uncomfortable.

I believe this is important because growth is life's imperative. We need to keep growing. McDonald's owner, Ray Kroc, said something to the effect of, “When you are green you're growing. When you're ripe you rot.”

Growth is life's imperative. And, with growth comes fear and failure. Quite the conundrum, wouldn't you say?

For this reason, I feel we need to make friends with fear and anxiety. We need to understand that they are an integral part of the growth process.

Personally, on my desktop, I have a document titled, “Current Fears Worksheet.” This document is a journal of sorts. And, periodically, I will sit down and write about the fears I am facing.

I sit and tune-in to my internal broadcaster. The inner Vin Scully, so to speak. I chronicle the beliefs, and automatic thoughts, that have given rise to each particular fear.

Then, I work through the flawed logic which has led to my fear. For each fear, I think of a more rational and reasonable perspective regarding the situation.

For example, like many people, I tend to be a perfectionist. When I do not perform, just right, I tend to beat myself up. Especially as pertains my work. This causes me to avoid activities where I fear I may under perform.

Of course, the more rational and reasonable perspective is to remember that nobody is perfect. And, even if I do achieve perfection, it can actually drive people away. All of us have a hard time relating to, and a distrust of, perfection.

Do your best? Yes. Perfection? No.

Or, let us say you are afraid of flying in an airplane. To fix the problem you will first need to be honest with yourself. Do not make excuses or place blame. Simply admit that horrible ideas circulate, in your brain, when you think of flying.

Your mind might automatically think about dying in a fireball of a crash. Or, you may think about drowning, trapped inside, as the fuselage sinks into the ocean. Whatever the thoughts are you should work on gaining a new perspective.

Here is one possibility. Ask yourself this question, how many people fly each year? I can tell you this, a quick Google search suggests that 100,000 commercial flights take place every day! And, how often do we hear of a deadly plane crash? Maybe once a year.

Thus, your chances of being in a deadly plane crash are about 1 in 37 million. As far as probabilities go, this is essentially zero. How is that for perspective?

Hopefully this all makes sense. I recommend you periodically tap into your inner monologue. Sit quietly and listen in to the thoughts swirling around in your head.

Then, record the themes. Write down what is causing your anxiety. Anxiety is usually the result of distorted thinking. By systematically analyzing your fears you will be able to repair those distortion.

Admittedly, this is harder than it first sounds. So, you might consider looking for some help.

In addition to growing, fear is one of the main barriers to effectiveness. For the most part, if you want to increase your effectiveness, you want to decrease your level of fear. More on this later....

Nick Saban and Sales

College football is in full swing and, unsurprisingly, Alabama is the #1 team in the nation. How has Alabama been so good for so long?

A big part of the answer is that they keep their saws sharp. And, a lot of that credit goes to their head coach, Nick Saban.

Last week, I talked about the idea of staying sharp. If you have not read it, click here. When I combined college football, with Covey's seventh habit, I was reminded of an article I read not too long ago.

The article was written by a sales trainer named Gary Walker. Here is the article in its entirety:

The college football season kicked off last week. Reigning national champion, the Alabama Crimson Tide, began right where they left off last season with a convincing 52 to 6 win over the University of Southern California.

A while ago, CBS 60 Minutes did a segment on Alabama football coach Nick Saban. He's one of the best coaches in college football, having now won four BCS championships with Alabama in 2009, 2011, 2012 and 2015, and another with LSU in 2003. I included a link to the segment. It’s under fourteen minutes long. If you have the time, and you’re a salesperson or sales leader, I think it is worth watching. There are so many lessons in this brief segment (Click here to watch the 60 Minutes segment.)

Most notably to me is that he attributes his team’s success to following and executing what he calls a football process. He insists his players not look at the scoreboard or worry about winning, but instead to focus on executing their individual assignments, perfecting their skills, and each offensive play that allows them to move the ball systematically, yard by yard down the field, and ultimately score. Now, they don’t sit around all week and decide they will go play a game on Saturday. When they are not playing an actual game they are practicing; about five (5) days of practice prior to the actual game. They practice their process for hours on a daily basis. That is the Alabama football process and it achieves the desired results.

So why is that notable to me? CustomerCentric Selling® is a sales process. If you are a salesperson and will continually focus on understanding, practicing and mastering the sales process, perfecting your sales skills, and moving the opportunity systematically through the company’s sales process, you will ultimately win. If you are a leader of salespeople, if you drive the execution of the sales process, you’ll drive the required revenue. It will require skill practice and opportunity coaching on a daily basis. You will help your salespeople prepare to win.

What practice do you have scheduled for your team?

Chopping down the tree

I do not know about you, but, I am a huge fan of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. In fact, kind of like Kouzes and Posner's book, I have written a number of posts about Stephen Covey's marvelous book. Click here and here and here

Today, let us remind ourselves of habit number seven.

Apparently, Abraham Lincoln once said something to the effect of, “Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.” Stated differently, it is important to stay sharp.

This is the 7th habit, according to Stephen Covey, “Sharpen the saw.”

As an entrepreneur, I make a lot of cold calls. And, I am always amazed by how quickly I become rusty. I mean, I would like to consider myself a fairly intelligent person. But, it only takes a couple days-off to practically forget how to make effective phone calls.

Recently, I was somewhat reassured to hear something a Realtor friend of mine said. My friend's name is James. He makes an obscene number of cold calls. And, James said that after one day-off he has completely forgotten how to do his job.

I have found this to be true. I have also once heard cold calling guru Jarrod Glandt say, “It takes one day to get rusty.” For this reason, I try to make cold calls every single day. This is pretty much the only way I know of to stay sharp.

You can also stay sharp by role-playing. But, it can be hard to find consistent role-play partners. So, personally, I like to categorize my prospects into three lists: primary, secondary, and practice. Whenever I feel the rust, I simply call my practice list.