Predictable events in the life cycles of families, businesses and individuals lead to predictable psychological reactions. Foreknowledge of likely psychological fallout from major events and transitions can go a long way to prevent negative outcomes. Of course every person and family enterprise is unique, and there is some variation in reactions to major changes. But these variations occur in a matrix whose boundaries are in fact knowable. Examples of inevitable events in the life cycle of a family enterprise include:
Succession (in the business or philanthropic activities),
Critical career choices faced by individuals in the family (and these have unique characteristics depending on whether they are in early, mid or later in work life).
Accession to or loss of a position of power and control
Events leading to two or more “classes” of family members
Both individual and group psychological reactions need to be understood—both are complex and important. Most often, these psychological phenomena are at least in part unconscious. And unconscious psychological phenomena can wreck havoc—leading to bickering factions, ill-advised decisions, and resistance to necessary change.
The good news is that we can identify events likely to occur in every family enterprise and accurately predict the psychological stress points that will accompany them, including likely unconscious fantasies, feelings and fears. Knowledge and anticipation of expected psychological undercurrents allow a family enterprise to take preventive measures, avoiding much of the fallout that an unexamined event might cause.
It’s a three step process: first, anticipate stress points in the lifecycle of the family and of its individual members. Second, share knowledge about the psychological stresses that are likely to accompany each particular stress point. And third, encourage individuals and the family to take specific preventive measures designed to manage the psychology of the event or transition.
This approach makes some people uncomfortable because it goes against a wish to “hope for the best,” “sweep things under the rug,” or a simply avoid negative, unpleasant, conflictual conversations. But the best prevention is bringing the potential emotional pain to light, where it can be looked at and discussed. Sometimes open acknowledgement and discussion is sufficient to prevent a problem from arising. In other situations, open discussion allows for proactive and protective measures to be taken. For family enterprises, the strength of the family’s commitment to its members can be a particular asset.
Here are some examples of inevitable life cycle stress points where the individual and group psychological reactions can be predicted and ameliorated by a conscious proactive process within the family:
A woman in the family takes over a position of power. Both she and the family have to understand the special challenges faced by women in power and the reactions in those they seek to lead.
The classic “mid life crisis”. Many individuals involved in the family enterprise will face a period of restlessness and questioning roughly between age 40 and 45. Although something of a cartoon cliché, the midlife crisis is actually far from a joke. At about age 40, the decisions about work and relationships made in one’s twenties and early thirties have borne fruit — or not. There is a clear path you’ve taken, and not infrequently a panicky questioning about what this means—“Is this the life I really want?” There is a positive potential to correct course or renew commitments. And a negative potential for flailing around, impulsively ending marriages or making unwise business decisions out of a need to do something, anything to alleviate the restless questioning.
The challenge faced by leaders in their mid 60’s to age 70, a life phase I call “starting older”—goals have been met, and succession may be in order. But these transitions are difficult both for the leader who is loathe to let go and the generation eager (but perhaps frightened) to step up.
Families face various circumstances that create two (or more) classes of members—those who work win the business and those who don’t, blood relations versus marrying-in, etc. Any time there is a division that creates an in-group and an out-group there is inevitable psychological “regression”. The term psychological regression refers to a situation where significant stress causes a group or individual to lose its best level of functioning—in such a state the group or person’s decisions are less rational and more emotion driven and impulsive, and certain bad but very human behaviors and attitudes are more likely to emerge. For example, when an in-group/out-group situation occurs, the regression leads to risk of blaming, shame, contempt and alienation. Open discussion and psychological inoculation can go a long way to preventing these regressive and destructive forces
A preventative approach can help avoid the trouble that can come when these stress points are not acknowledged, examined and discussed by the family or the individuals within it.
I published this in Huffington Post, September 19, 2016. Like my earlier post on Hillary Clinton, “Everybody’s Mother” it address the importance of understanding unconscious processes in voters. Voting choices, like all other decisions people make, are deeply effected by emotions and unconscious narratives and fantasies. Messaging that takes unconscious but ubiquitous hidden psychological processes into account can outsmart resistances and have a much stronger impact. You can read the blog post here on Huffington.
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Rational Arguments can’t win this bizarre presidential campaign but emotion-stoked messages that speak directly to the unconscious can
Do you remember when you were a child and a cataclysmic thunder storm lit up your back yard? You were terrified that lightening would strike your house. And your Dad said, “No it won’t. There’s a one in a million chance of that. We’re totally safe. I promise.” You probably sought and received similar reassurances about plane crashes, child abductions, large bears and murderers. “I promise, you’re safe.” This is The Big Daddy Lie. (And please forgive me, I know in some families it’s the Mom, or the Grandmother issuing the Big Daddy Lie. I’m talking about a role and a function here).
The Big Daddy Lie is psychologically essential. As children we need to believe there is a powerful grown up who knows more than us. We need him to tell he knows reality better than our fearful minds do and that he’ll keep us safe. We need this omnipotent, omniscient father even when we suspect he’s not telling the truth. And we carry that dependence into adulthood, reassuring ourselves, “Well, yes, planes crash, but I promise, not this one I’m getting on.” It’s not true, we don’t know that, but we have to let ourselves believe the lie, or we couldn’t go anywhere. Without the Big Daddy Lie in childhood and in its integrated version in our adult minds, we’d be too paralyzed by fear to do anything.
I’m convinced that The Big Daddy Lie is a big part of Donald Trump’s current (and terrifying) rise in the polls. I wish my Dad were around to tell me we were safe.
Habituation to Trump’s bad behavior (fairly widely discussed as “normalization”) paves the way for a new emotional response to him, a positive tilt towards the comforting Big Daddy Lie. Trump harnesses the power of the Big Daddy Lie masterfully, and the anxious child lurking within everyone basically laps it up.
I’m not saying voters are children. But emotions powerfully effect voter decision making (see Drew Westen’s The Political Brain). And childhood emotional experiences are dormant and revivable—they become unconscious narratives or experiential templates that stay with us and are aroused in times of stress or fear. Or when they are skillfully manipulated. This in part explains the rise and popularity of strongmen everywhere. The rational observer sees the destruction they will wreck upon their people. The child inside all of us can be drawn into the illusion of safety that the Big Daddy promises to provide. He will take care of us.
Over and over from Donald Trump, like a drumbeat: “I’ll fix it, I promise”. “That’s not going to happen when I become President.” “The pipes [in Flint] will be changed. It will be done right. It will be done quickly. I know how to do it.” “I’ll fix the inner city” (ok, the Big Daddy Lie from Trump didn’t work so well that time). “Those terrorists, they won’t get to you when I’m president. Okay? Okay?” Notice that sometimes his voice drops to a soothing murmur. “Okay? I promise. Okay? I promise.” He implies, and sometimes says, and “Only I can do it.”
It’s painful, but understandable that Trump will appeal to 35-40% of the electorate. We know this from studies on authoritarian personality. (see Amanda Taub in Vox
But how to account for the 10-15% rise bringing him neck and neck with Clinton? I’m suggesting the operation of a psychological one-two punch—(1) the widely discussed (by Democrats anyway) “normalization of his bad behavior” (2) leads to conditions in which the Big Daddy Lie can exert a powerful appear. Luckily, I think there are a couple of ways to counteract its influence.
The Normalization of Bad Behavior
There’s solid psychology behind the normalization-of-bad-behavior phenomenon. In other words, it was predictable. People can get used to anything if they are exposed to it long enough. We’re so used to Trump saying things that are patently, outlandishly false, like claiming that Clinton doesn’t have a child care program, or wildly inappropriate, like calling a US Senator “Pocahontas.” So when we hear a new lie or an old insult, nothing gets stirred up inside us except a sense of resignation. The psychological explanation behind this normalization phenomenon is pretty simple: the familiar outrageous fails to evoke a strong emotional response in the listener. This is a normal, self-protective psychological defense mechanism. No one can function when continuously aroused to a state of fear, shock or outrage. But in this Presidential campaign, it’s frighteningly dangerous.
Repeatedly exposed to Trump’s objectively ridiculous, outrageous or even, yes, deplorable speech and actions, our emotional activating systems are desensitized and habituated. Our alerting systems take a snooze. Emotional sensors don’t flood our bodies with stress hormones. That feeling of being punched in the guts? Doesn’t happen. We all join the chorus of “That’s just Trump” as Mike Pence once put it in his genial manner.
What can be done? Raise a passionate ruckus. The desensitization to bad behavior can be overcome by making a louder emotional noise, to break through the numbing and cut straight through to the voter’s emotional brains. A number of Hillary’s advertisements, like the one showing military families who have clearly made enormous sacrifices watching, incredulously, as Trump claims he too made sacrifices by building “structures,” powerfully connect to the voter’s emotions. Videos from groups like Correct the Record’s The Trump Project, skillfully use razor sharp editing to over-ride numbed emotional reactions. Our limbic systems are no longer going to react when Trump calls Senator Elizabeth Warren “Pocahontas”, though we should by rights be flooded with outrage and fear. But a collage of clips of him repeatedly calling people names still can slice through the desensitization.
Elizabeth Warren herself is a master of emotional power—listen to one of her speeches, dripping brilliantly with articulately expressed outrage, and suddenly the numbness evaporates. I’d like to see Bernie Sanders out there every day, breaking through the numbness, because his rhetoric also arouses passion in his followers.
But the best way to combat the Big Daddy Lie is for Mrs. Clinton to offer something just as powerful— messaging that similarly speaks to and reassures the anxious child that lives within every voter. She needs to use emotionally evocative language that targets buried memories of and longing for a powerful, protective mother who takes care of us and keeps us from harm. I’ve written elsewhere about the pitfalls for women in positions of power. But the image of a powerful, protective female force is also there to be harnessed. In a speech in the 2008 primaries, Clinton met the challenge magnificently and provided an image of distinctly female power that could not help but exert a tremendous positive appeal. The speech developed a riff on the Emma Lazarus poem about Lady Liberty, Clinton offering herself symbolically as a version of that much larger than life figure, a steady, welcoming, embracing, protective powerful female presence. Take that Big Daddy.
I published this essay in Huffington Post last February. I think it is still relevant in September 2016–maybe more so than ever. A companion piece is Trump’s Big Daddy Lie. Both posts refer to the unconscious processes that effect a politician’s popularity and how these can be overcome or positively deployed.
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That pesky mother issue keeps cropping up in our collective political life—and will always dog Hillary Clinton’s heels, as well as those of any woman who dares to seek a position of political power. Doesn’t it seem that Hillary Clinton can’t catch a break? Years ago she got in trouble for saying she was going to work and not stay home and bake cookies (too tough). Then she gets in trouble for tolerating Bill’s behavior—shouldn’t she have thrown him out on his ear (not tough enough)? Her interest in children’s welfare was seen, some years ago, as not sufficiently weighty (not tough enough). Now she is considered too much a part of the (male-ish) power establishment (too tough).
You can’t understand why Hillary Clinton always seems to be, well, dissatisfying to many voters without understanding a fundamental psychoanalytic concept-a phenomenon called transference, and particularly the biggie, the mother transference.
I’ve been watching Hillary for years, and she is always accused of one of two sins—being too strong or not strong enough. This happens to all women leaders. The more power you have, the more visible you are, the higher the pitch of criticism. Understanding how the mother transference works in politics can provide lessons for the Clinton campaign and generations of women leaders to come.
Transference refers to very strong feelings, hopes, fantasies and fears we have in relation to the important adults of our childhood that carry forward, unconsciously, into present day relationships.
Doctors, professors, lawyers, clergy and politicians – male and female – are the recipients of strong transferences.
Female teachers, caretakers and leaders are likely targets for what we call “mother transferences.”
At the point where power politics and the psychic world of transference intersect, men have a distinct advantage. We like idealizing a powerful man and fantasize that by attaching our fates to his, we are somehow safer, wiser and more powerful ourselves.
Communicating a positive, evocative image about leadership and power is far more complicated when it comes to women leaders. Here’s one reason why: the most profound experience of power any of us have in our lives is the infinitely powerful mother of early childhood. The dirty secret in our psyches is that if you dig deep enough you discover a hidden feeling that women are actually not soft, nurturing and emotional, but all-powerful and not so nice.
The universal “omnipotent mother” of early childhood had power and control over every aspect of our lives: whether or not our needs are met, whether our communications are understood, whether our development is supported or thwarted.
As a result, we humans are deeply ambivalent towards women in power. A powerful woman tends not to exert an automatic pull of attraction like a powerful man, but rather wariness at best or even repulsion.
We are reluctant to move toward a powerful woman who reminds us of the negative side of a mother experienced as nagging, restricting, shaming or controlling.
Even without personally exhibiting these traits, a woman in power is at risk of being repellant merely by her power itself evoking these negative expectations.
Back in 2008, during the Ohio primary campaign, Hillary said, in one of her speeches, “Shame on you, Barack Obama,” It didn’t come across as tough and assertive. Instead, she elicited echoes of the shaming, mocking parent we may have had, or feared having. You can’t win adherents by reminding them of their mother’s ability to make them feel bad. No one is going to feel attracted to the maternal figure in active shaming, criticizing mode.
Here’s another problem a woman candidate for high office faces—some images of power that evoke strong positive associations when it comes to a male leader just don’t work so well for a woman.
Everyone loves a fighter, right? Especially if they’re fighting for me? A powerful man is going to fight for us — that carries promise and excites loyalty. A powerful woman fighting for us is an image that simply doesn’t resonate. Our hearts just don’t thrum to the image of a woman fighting. It’s not fair. It’s sexist. But it is true.
“Fighting For Us” is one of the Clinton campaign’s key slogans. “I will stand up and fight for you. I will get up every single day and keep fighting for the kind of America we want,” Clinton said during the Iowa campaign. And after the New Hampshire defeat, she posted on Twitter: “It’s not whether you get knocked down that matters, it’s whether you get back up.”
I think Hillary the Fighter leaves people cold—or a little out of sorts. Because she’s a woman. As I said it’s not fair.
What messages would work better? In addition to avoiding negative echoes of a nagging or controlling mother, Clinton and her campaign have to search for positive images of female power that don’t carry that frisson of unease that a Female Fighter does.
I’ll protect you. I’ll keep you safe. I’ll make sure you have what you need. I’ll look out for you when no one else does. The mother bear, the mother lion. These themes and images evoke a positive feeling and no dissonance.
Speaking in Flint on February 7, Clinton said, “Do not grow weary doing good. Do not get discouraged. Do not give up”. And speaking about his wife on February 1, Bill Clinton said, “She always makes good things happen.” Wow. These messages work. Support, encouragement, belief in us, inspiration, making good things happen. That’s female power at its best.
At other times in her career, Mrs. Clinton has demonstrated a remarkable power to evoke images of positive female power. Her book It Takes a Village is one example. What does that title convey, psychologically? We women take care of our people; we will protect and nurture you so you can live a good life.
Another image she deployed in 2008 magnificently captured positive and distinctly female power. In a speech on the night of the Super Tuesday primaries, she evoked the image of the Statue of Liberty, quoting Emma Lazarus’ poem, and then inviting the people to come to her with their problems and needs. It was perfect. She nailed the transference problem. She found a way to be both a powerful woman and infinitely appealing.
Lady Liberty is the perfect image for an enormously strong and powerful woman that is at the same time positively maternal and nurturing.
Fair or not, women in leadership have to be particularly smart in understanding and managing the transferences that will inevitably come their way.
Women with power must be careful to avoid evoking in the voter (or their subordinates in a company) the buried experience of the nagging, shaming, disappointed and entitled mother.
They must look for images like the Statue of Liberty or the village of women that protects and nurtures, evoking positive and distinctly female power. These images and themes will touch the voters in a way only a woman can.
With this week’s flurry of Trump campaign/Fox news speculations that Hillary Clinton is sick or sleepy, and Donald Trump’s tweet that MSNBC morning co-host Mika Brzezinski is neurotic (right after his campaign manager said he was done with personal attacks, too!) Donald Trump has nearly completed filling out a metaphorical bingo card of every malicious trope about women that has cropped up since the beginning of time, especially when men are insecure or scared of women.
I have to admit there a few negative female archetypes I can think of that haven’t yet made their way onto the Hannity show or Trump’s Twitter feed. So he can’t say “Bingo” quite yet. Each of these demeaning or frightening images of women has a long history in mythology, literature, art, and in the thinking of people across time. There are still 76 days left in the campaign, so maybe he or his minions will be able to fill the whole card.
Here’s the list of negative female stereotypes Trump has called forward so far:
The Old Crone (somewhat magical and scary) and…
The Physically and Mentally Weak Woman
Both of these frightening and dismissive visions of scary women are evoked in the current conspiracy theory that Hillary is sick. She allegedly had a seizure at a donut shop. She is absent, sleeping all the time. She couldn’t walk up a couple of stairs. You look at her on the campaign trail day after day, vibrant and healthy and with unbending energy, unfailing attention. How in the world could a fantasy of her as sick or weak take hold? Because these are mental constructs that people carry around in their unconscious, and they rise to the surface in times of threat.
The Undesirable Outcast (not worthy of a man’s sexual attention)
Megan Kelly famously summed it up when she questioned Trump in the first Republican primary debate: “You’ve called women you don’t like ‘fat pigs,’ ‘dogs,’ ‘slobs,’ and ‘disgusting animals.’ Does that sound to you like the temperament of a man we should elect as president?”
Trump: “What I say is what I say. And honestly, Megyn, if you don’t like it, I’m sorry, I’ve been very nice to you, although I could probably maybe not be, based on the way you have treated me. But I wouldn’t do that to you.”
The Hysteric Neurotic Mess
Mika Brzezinski apparently upset Mr. Trump and he deploys two other “bad woman”cliches to attack her. She’s clearly beautiful, so he can’t put her in the undesirable category. First, she must be neurotic, a label (interchanged with hysteric) that has been used against women when they are not pleasing for ages:
Trying to undermine Brzezinski’s stature further, Trump calls her “Joe’s girlfriend” in a follow up tweet, reducing her to another man’s possession rather than a force in her own right.
The beautiful object, or as Trump puts it, “a beautiful piece of ass”
Just a few sample quotes from Mr. Trump, all of which are now painfully familiar.
“You know, it doesn’t really matter what [the media] write as long as you’ve got a young and beautiful piece of ass.” — from an interview with Esquire, 1991
“I mean, we could say politically correct that look doesn’t matter, but the look obviously matters,” Trump said to a female reporter in a clip featured on “Last Week Tonight.” “Like you wouldn’t have your job if you weren’t beautiful.” (John Oliver on Miss America Pageant September 2014)
And most cringe-worthy of all, on The View (March 2006) Trump, speculates about his daughter, “Although she does have a very nice figure. I’ve said that if Ivanka weren’t my daughter, perhaps, I would be dating her.”
The Bitch
This is pretty much every woman who manages to make him look bad.
The Overwhelming Terrifying Biological mystery
Trump’s infamous Megyn Kelly Tweet combines elements of the bitch and the terrible biological mystery:
The Roots of Mysogyny- Fear of Women’s Strength and Power
I’ve written elsewhere that you can’t understand Hillary’s Clinton’s difficulties with “popularity” or the common negative reactions to women in positions of power without understanding a fundamental psychoanalytic concept-a phenomenon called transference, and particularly, the mother transference.
Let me explain the two parts of the concept, “mother transference”. Transference refers to the very strong fears, desires and fantasies we originally feel towards the important people in our early lives. It’s a universal feature of human psychology that we carry these forward into adulthood and at times lay them down, like a transparency, onto present day relationships, both personal and public. So our vision of the person in the present day is partly who they really are and partly shaped by these transference overlays created by our emotional experiences of figures in our past.
So, what’s special about the mother transference? For the sake of brevity, I’m going to use the typical family constellation, where the mother is the predominant figure in early child rearing. Think about what power this gives her. The mother of our infancy is about as an omnipotent figure as one could construct. She determines when and what we eat, when we rest, when we get what we want and when we are thwarted. She allows others into our world or has the power to keep them out. Her responses to us carve deep and lasting mental circuits —if she is erratic we may fear inconstancy for the rest of our lives; if she shames us in our infant helplessness, our sense of self may be permanently injured. If her face lights up when she sees us we are on our way to developing a permanent feeling that the world is fundamentally a good place and and we have a good foundation in it. Depending on your temperament and how your early life goes, your “maternal transference” may be predominantly negative or predominantly positive. If it is mainly negative, then you are inclined to see powerful women as threatening or dangerous. If it is mainly positive, a powerful woman is a beacon of hope (think Lady Liberty).
Tyrant or benevolent caregiver, the mother of our childhood is omnipotent, and that creates a permanent uneasiness. Then, later in life, when we encounter a powerful woman, these early fantasies and fears related to omnipotent women can be aroused. And that’s the root of misogyny and all sorts of hostile and demeaning images of women.
I’ve always felt that the old idea of women as the “weaker sex’ is pure wishful thinking. Guess what—I discovered that Donald Trump agrees with me! In The Art of the Comeback, he wrote
“Women have one of the great acts of all time. The smart ones act very feminine and needy, but inside they are real killers. The person who came up with the expression ‘the weaker sex’ was either very naive or had to be kidding. I have seen women manipulate men with just a twitch of their eye — or perhaps another body part.”
Many of the memes of misogyny are responses to the underlying unconscious fear that powerful women induce. The common underlying fear is that she will once again make me feel small and helpless. I will once again be subject to her power.
Women in positions of leadership—in business, politics or any other sphere— need to understand the negative maternal transference, learn to tolerate the hostility it often gives birth to, and strategize how to tap into a positive maternal transference. Evoke the unconscious image of the strong woman who sacrificed everything, understood me and knew how to meet my needs. This is a topic for another time. Today, I’m in the land of witches and bitches.
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Here are three classic negative female archetypes Trump has, to my knowledge yet to invoke. Let’s see if he manages to cover the entire field of misogynistic mythology by election day.
The Child Stealing Witch—(e.g. Adam’s first wife, Lilith)
Women who Shun Men—(e.g. Amazons)
The Woman who Manipulates Men by Withholding Sex—(e.g. Lysistrata)
“Understand yourself”. That’s #1 under four pieces of key advice for entrepreneurs in a recent INC. Magazine lead by columnist Lolly Daskal.
Wow, I thought. That’s what we psychoanalysts toil away at helping people do. I was delighted to see it headlined in a popular business magazine by a superstar coach.
(July/August 2016 p.8)
But I wondered immediately how many of INC.’s readers would have any idea how to turn that essential piece of advice into action? That’s the hard part. It requires a different way of thinking and observing from our habitual ones. I have some tips below to get you started.
First, let me make the case for understanding yourself. Your “self” is your best instrument. By “self” I mean that complex amalgam of mind, brain, emotions, behavioral habits, values, body and culture that determines what you want, what you perceive, and how you understand the world around you. If you know your “self” extremely well, you have an immediate competitive edge. Because each of us has unconscious biases, determining narratives, “foibles” as Daskal puts it, idiosyncrasies and different strengths and weaknesses. Knowing what these are in increasing precision allows you to use the tool of your self to great advantage in any business decision.
It’s important to understand that each of us has an unconscious as well as a conscious mental life. And we each have the capacity for rational as well as irrational/emotion-driven thought. The trick is to get familiar with as much of this terrain as possible and gather input from all segments and modes of experiencing and processing information.
Like anything else worth doing, to achieve expertise in this area takes a lifetime of practice (remember Malcolm Gladwell: it takes 10,000 hours of practice to become proficient).
And finally, there’s no one else whose mind and brain is put together like yours, so there’s no book or test that can tell you who you are. But there are established techniques that can lead you to self-understanding—and some are distinctly are counter-intuitive.
I’ve spent over a quarter century helping people understand themselves, so I thought I’d share some of the less obvious tips and techniques I’ve learned and teach my clients.
So here are 10 ways to get started on the path to knowing yourself in a comprehensive and complex way that will sharpen and clarify your decisions and performance—and maybe even lead to a more satisfying life:
1. Trust your gut to tell you when something is off, but not to tell you exactly what the problem is.
Your “gut” is a very reliable sensor that will tell you something is wrong in your social environment. But it is notoriously inaccurate at identifying what that “wrongness” is and therefore what you should do. If something doesn’t feel right, it isn’t. Trust that. But you need a lot more thought to determine exactly what the problem is. Your first thought about what the problem is might well be entirely wrong. In fact, it’s more likely to be a false lead than a useful one. That’s because we all tend to organize data according to familiar patterns and assumptions, which may not be the most relevant factors in the current situation. Try to let your mind loose and think of all the possible reasons for the “wrongness” you feel. It may turn out to be something correctable. If you can’t figure it out, it’s probably best to walk away.
2. Pay attention to your subtler reactions
These subtle cues to people and event (such as states of mild confusion, distraction, a sudden fit of yawning in an interview) are extremely valuable. Learn to notice them and ask yourself what’s going on. If you are sleepy during a meeting with a subordinate, ask yourself if they are really engaged in the work. If you are in a meeting and find that as hard as you try, you keep feeling confused about what people are trying to say, ask yourself if it’s you (some personal issue is snagging your focus) or are you picking up on a significant structural problem in the project or issue being discussed.
Here’s an advanced way of using your “self” as an instrument. Sometimes we notice internal feelings or reactions that seem strong but somehow foreign. There’s a discrepancy between something—a feeling–inside and what you know about yourself that day. Let’s say you’re having a good day but in a meeting with client you’re flooded with anxiety. You think, “That’s weird, I feel so anxious but I’m not really upset about anything”. It is possible you’re soaking up the other person’s feelings and experiencing them indirectly. Some of us are more likely to do this than others, and another key part of self-knowledge is knowing if you have this talent or predilection. If you do, you can use it to get inside of the heads of the people you’re dealing with before they even know what they’re feeling.
3. Practice the art of associative thinking.
A crucial road to self-understanding is to learn to think in a nonlinear, associative way. If I’m feeling anxious and ask myself directly what I’m worried about I’m likely to come up with either a trite answer or none at all. Instead of a direct linear question, learn to let your mind lose and see what floats in. A story, a bit of history, a song or memory? You’ll be surprised at the revelations that can ensue.
4. Know your habitual narratives, and practice coming up with others.
We all use narrative to govern and organize our mental lives. Some of these are conscious; others are subconscious but still very powerful. Without narratives we can’t process the vast amount of data that hits us every day. While narratives are essential organizing tools, they can also be limiting. We tend to get stuck in them. For example, a client of mine was dissatisfied with her career and kept thinking she would make a major change if she got a particular dream job. A change in her narrative— “Actually, I could make a major change right now- forget about the dream job” led to a completely different perspective.
5. Get to know your neurobiology.
Each of us has a unique neurobiology and innate temperament. Getting intimate with it allows us to maximize or potential. Some people are fast processors—they assimilate information rapidly and have made a decision before even consciously registering all the facts. Others (equally intelligent, I remind fast processors) are slow processors, and need a great deal of time to mull over options and nuances before arriving at a conclusion. Neither approach is right—just know which one leads you to the best decisions and respect that others take different paths. Some of us are strong at pattern and anomaly recognition, others at comparing abstract theories, others at seeing problems and solutions. We also differ on what I call “sponginess” to outside stimuli—some of us have good thick skins that allow us to block out others’ feelings and random bits of information to keep our focus (but risk missing key data). Others tend to soak up everything coming at them, including other peoples’ emotional states and needs. This allows for sensitivity and a rich collection of data, but can lead to being overwhelmed and distracted. Learn to protect yourself from too much stimulus inflow if you’re more of a sponge, and to open up and pay attention to what’s around you if you tend to block out stimuli.
Meanwhile, know your body. How much sleep do you need to function at top form? Know what eating well means for you. If you get cranky at 4 o’clock every day, or are prone to panic attacks, you might be sensitive to drops in your blood sugar. Find out how people with this sensitivity need to eat.
6. Don’t expect basic human fundamentals to change
If you’re an introvert, don’t expect yourself to become an extrovert. If you find someone difficult to deal with in initial negotiations, don’t expect that things will settle down once the deal is done—they more likely will still be difficult to deal with. If you do your best work alone, don’t spend too much effort learning about delegation and teamwork. A caveat—make sure it is a fundamental before you accept it as a given. You might think you can’t be a public speaker or a risk taker but with some practice a “fundamental” turn out to be amenable to practice and change.
7. Learn to interpret fear and anxiety correctly
Anxiety is a normal adaptive human function that alerts us to danger and stimulates us to action. “The sky looks ominous with a greenish tinge. I better get inside”. But over our lifetimes we collect fears and anxieties. One client was scared of starting over in a new city. Looking closer, we discovered that fear was based on childhood experience in a military family that moved many times; as a child she was overwhelmed by the emotional challenges of repeatedly adapting to a new environment. Now, she realized, she was more than equipped with the necessary skills and didn’t need to narrow her options based on avoiding a geographical change.
On the other hand, some fears are just part of who we are. If you really, really dread something, be compassionate to yourself and accept that. Find a work-around. You have a limited amount of energy and time. If you just can’t bear getting on airplanes, or public speaking, or starting conversations with strangers, don’t. There are always other ways to get where you need to go.
8.Try to work with people you like and are comfortable with
Life (and work and business) are hard. Don’t make it harder than it needs to be by forming alliances with difficult people, no matter what assets they bring to the table. Warren Buffet says it repeatedly (and beautifully) in his famous letters to investors:
“After some mistakes, I learned to go into business only with people whom I like, trust and admire.”
Conversely, he warns,
“We do not wish to join with managers who lack admirable qualities, no matter how attractive the prospects of their businesss. We’ve never succeeded in making a good deal with a bad person”.
Paraphrasing Buffet’s blunt advice, don’t work with people who cause your stomach to churn, or who are deceitful, inept or uninterested. It is like a very bad marriage.
9. Develop your differentness
You can’t be like everybody else. Learn more about who you are, and maximize your opportunities to perform as the best YOU. Warren Buffet again, quoting David Ogilvy: “Develop your eccentricities while you are young”.
10. Try to spend most of your time and effort doing what you want to do
Or at least work towards this as a goal. It’s amazingly easy to fill our entire lives with other peoples’ agendas. Think twice or three times before agreeing to give a talk, chair a committee, go to a meeting. Do you actually want to do it or is it something others want from you? Greg McKeown’s book Essentialism is a great guide to this aspect of self-knowledge.
Bonus point: Take the time to think about the impact of your actions and choices
You can do anything you want, but as a moral person and a good citizen, you need to take responsibility for the consequences of your behavior on others. This makes you a better person all around, strengthens relationships and creates undying loyalty.
