so how many of you wake up in the
morning and say to yourselves today I
want to make sure that I feel completely
unimportant incapable and unlikable any
takers
no no we usually don’t feel that way
I learned something very useful about
dealing with these kinds of difficult
feelings in a conversation that I had
with my father we were at his house we
were by the fireplace it was evening and
it was the first time that he and I had
a chance to talk just the two of us in a
long time and we caught up on a whole
bunch of things and finally he started
talking about his work and his legacy my
father was a psychologist he was very
well known in his field and he spent his
career helping people achieve their
potential
and find joy and feel more fully alive
and he was very successful through his
writing and his books and the workshops
that he created he touched people all
over the world
it was almost routine for people to
approach him and tell him that he had
helped to change their lives yet here we
were sitting by the fire talking about
this and he began to doubt himself and
he said to me you know after I’m gone I
think people will forget about my work
they won’t do it anymore
and they’ll forget about me and I
thought he was joking so I said
something to him that was a joke and and
I realized no he was serious he was
really feeling this and I thought well I
try to convince him so I gave him
arguments and I tried to convince him
that wasn’t true but each thing I said
he would simply refute so we went back
and forth and back and forth finally he
stopped and he looked up at me with a
twinkle in his eye that I hadn’t seen in
a really long time and he just said I
know can’t you see I’m busy being
miserable
and in that moment he taught me
something although I don’t think he knew
he was doing it at the time because he
was saying to me that he knew he was
getting himself into this bad space he
was starting to pull himself out of it
and he was reconnecting with me as he
said it the other part of the story is
that this was just a few months before
he died and he was in the final stages
of Parkinson’s disease so all of his
doubts about himself were bubbling up
and coming to the surface at this point
he was moving strangely and his voice
was quiet because of the disease so
people would often treat him like he
wasn’t there or ignore him that was very
painful for him it was something he
worried about all his life if he
mattered or not he could no longer
control his body completely and so he
had 24-hour care which was humiliating
and Parkinson’s brings all of your
emotions right to the surface so he
would Iraq react emotionally to anything
that happened and he was always worried
that people would judge him negatively
because of what he felt
now these fears of being ignored or
embarrassed or rejected were right on
the surface for him but actually their
fears that we all share these are normal
human fears now we don’t feel them all
the time necessarily but in certain
circumstances or around particular
people they arise and when they do
they’re very painful for us I don’t like
to see all that pain it’s become my
personal mission to do something about
it I’m an organizational psychologist
and so I work with people to help them
build trusting relationships and work
more effectively with one another so
that they can be effective in their work
in their lives and this was something
that I always wanted to do what I
learned in that conversation by the
fireplace was that it’s not so much
about the fears that’s important because
we all have the fears and they come up
what’s crucial is how we deal with those
fears if I if we have a way to deal with
the fears then when they do arise we can
quickly come back to a place of feeling
connected to other people feeling more
joyful and feeling fully alive but if we
don’t have a good way to deal with them
we try to escape or try to avoid them or
act like they’re not there
we do that through defensive behavior
which works to get us away from the
fears but it’s that’s exactly what we
don’t like about each other is this
defensive behavior and it comes at a
huge cost to us I’ll give you an example
I worked on a team and there was a
colleague of mine who was very capable
very experienced and I noticed that
whenever he would talk I would have a
strong reaction he would make a
recommendation and I would feel like I
was somehow lesser than or I wasn’t as
good as and I wish I had come up with
those ideas I became very defensive with
him I would criticize I would make
excuses I would blame and my defensive
nough sprang to defensive nasaan his end
and eventually our relationship
deteriorated to the point where he left
the company because of it a huge cost to
the company to the team certainly to
each of us and our relationship so
there’s another way instead of trying to
escape from our fears it’s by going
toward them if you will instead of being
enlightened it’s to become and darkened
let me give you a metaphor for what I
mean when I was a kid my grandmother had
a little dog named Betina Betina was a
small mutt she was light brown everyone
liked her but occasionally she would
bite your hand now when that happened
most people would simply pull their hand
away and Bettina would just grab on
harder and bite more that’s just like
our fears the more we try to escape them
the harder they bite but my grandmother
was clever
when Bettina would bite her hand she
would firmly but gently push her hand
into the dog’s mouth and Bettina would
gagged for a moment and then stop biting
that’s what we can do when we become
fearful and defensive
we can go toward rather than away we can
in darken and that means to expose what
we’re doing to tell people to say it
here’s what I’m doing here’s how I’m
being defensive
we even exaggerate it and thus take away
all of its power and defuse the
situation it comes down to a simple
statement of truth that I say right in
the moment can’t you see I’m busy being
miserable so how do we do this well the
first step is to notice when I’m
starting to do it now usually when I’m
in a situation that doesn’t feel good
I think it’s the other person they did
something I didn’t like they said
something I didn’t like and so on my
encouragement is that you look at
yourself not to blame yourself that’s
different this is to check what am i
doing and what can I therefore do that
will help let me give you three things
to look for you ever notice that when
somebody is talking in this it doesn’t
feel good you find yourself thinking
about all the ways that you’re going to
refute what they have to say
tell them how they’re wrong how you’re
right instead you might say it directly
or you might say it with a indirect
question are you sure you want to do
that this is what we call being a critic
anyone ever do that so that was me
with my colleague I was very critical of
him it took me years to figure out how
to use this simple statement of truth
several several years later he and I
were talking we wound up working from a
distance in different companies and we
were on the phone and at some point he
brought up an idea and oh I could feel
myself having that old reaction and
almost without thinking about it I found
myself blurting out well I’m about to
criticize your idea but that’s because I
think it’s a good idea and I actually
feel like you’re smarter than I am
and there was a long pause I had no idea
what he was gonna say and he finally
said oh I had no idea I really liked
your ideas that’s why I like having
these conversations with you
we had a very different conversation
after that everything shifted second
thing you can look for do you ever find
yourself in a situation where you you’re
not quite liking it and you start
explaining why we don’t actually need to
do anything why there’s really no
problem it’s no big deal let me tell you
why let me give you a lot of reasons why
that is it’s all good that’s what we say
all right this is called denial anybody
do this yeah so my sister-in-law tells
me that she’s an expert at this
she runs a company and people will come
to her all the time with ideas and
recommendations she says for years she
would feel not so good about that it
touched something that she didn’t like
and so she would explain carefully and
in some great detail why there was no
reason to do anything differently she
would give them statistics and data talk
about their strategy why nothing had to
change whatsoever but the ultimate
answer was no no no with a lot of
explanation no no she said after years
of that she realized that that wasn’t
helping very much not only were no ideas
getting implemented it didn’t help
morale a whole lot and she didn’t really
want to do that so now she says when
somebody comes to her with an idea she
pauses for a moment and then simply says
I’m going to take a couple of days to
get past my defense of this and then I
will get back to you with a response
third thing you can look for again in
those situations where it just starts
feeling not so good do you find yourself
thinking things like this you know
things never go my way people are
insensitive
they never are looking out for my needs
as well as theirs this always happens to
me if something’s gonna go wrong it’s
gonna happen
to me this is called being a victim
anybody find themselves in that spot
once in a while I think that was where
my dad was in that conversation by the
fireplace at least at first but what so
impressed me was that here he was his
body ravaged by Parkinson’s disease and
yet he was still able to notice and stop
and go toward rather than away put his
hand into the dog’s mouth of it and in
darken it and by saying can’t you see
I’m busy being miserable he showed me
and I hope all of us that we can go
toward rather than a way that we can
connect rather than defend and push
people away that we can become more
joyful and and a bit have a bit of humor
in our lives and become more fully alive
thank you
[Applause]
you
morning and say to yourselves today I
want to make sure that I feel completely
unimportant incapable and unlikable any
takers
no no we usually don’t feel that way
I learned something very useful about
dealing with these kinds of difficult
feelings in a conversation that I had
with my father we were at his house we
were by the fireplace it was evening and
it was the first time that he and I had
a chance to talk just the two of us in a
long time and we caught up on a whole
bunch of things and finally he started
talking about his work and his legacy my
father was a psychologist he was very
well known in his field and he spent his
career helping people achieve their
potential
and find joy and feel more fully alive
and he was very successful through his
writing and his books and the workshops
that he created he touched people all
over the world
it was almost routine for people to
approach him and tell him that he had
helped to change their lives yet here we
were sitting by the fire talking about
this and he began to doubt himself and
he said to me you know after I’m gone I
think people will forget about my work
they won’t do it anymore
and they’ll forget about me and I
thought he was joking so I said
something to him that was a joke and and
I realized no he was serious he was
really feeling this and I thought well I
try to convince him so I gave him
arguments and I tried to convince him
that wasn’t true but each thing I said
he would simply refute so we went back
and forth and back and forth finally he
stopped and he looked up at me with a
twinkle in his eye that I hadn’t seen in
a really long time and he just said I
know can’t you see I’m busy being
miserable
and in that moment he taught me
something although I don’t think he knew
he was doing it at the time because he
was saying to me that he knew he was
getting himself into this bad space he
was starting to pull himself out of it
and he was reconnecting with me as he
said it the other part of the story is
that this was just a few months before
he died and he was in the final stages
of Parkinson’s disease so all of his
doubts about himself were bubbling up
and coming to the surface at this point
he was moving strangely and his voice
was quiet because of the disease so
people would often treat him like he
wasn’t there or ignore him that was very
painful for him it was something he
worried about all his life if he
mattered or not he could no longer
control his body completely and so he
had 24-hour care which was humiliating
and Parkinson’s brings all of your
emotions right to the surface so he
would Iraq react emotionally to anything
that happened and he was always worried
that people would judge him negatively
because of what he felt
now these fears of being ignored or
embarrassed or rejected were right on
the surface for him but actually their
fears that we all share these are normal
human fears now we don’t feel them all
the time necessarily but in certain
circumstances or around particular
people they arise and when they do
they’re very painful for us I don’t like
to see all that pain it’s become my
personal mission to do something about
it I’m an organizational psychologist
and so I work with people to help them
build trusting relationships and work
more effectively with one another so
that they can be effective in their work
in their lives and this was something
that I always wanted to do what I
learned in that conversation by the
fireplace was that it’s not so much
about the fears that’s important because
we all have the fears and they come up
what’s crucial is how we deal with those
fears if I if we have a way to deal with
the fears then when they do arise we can
quickly come back to a place of feeling
connected to other people feeling more
joyful and feeling fully alive but if we
don’t have a good way to deal with them
we try to escape or try to avoid them or
act like they’re not there
we do that through defensive behavior
which works to get us away from the
fears but it’s that’s exactly what we
don’t like about each other is this
defensive behavior and it comes at a
huge cost to us I’ll give you an example
I worked on a team and there was a
colleague of mine who was very capable
very experienced and I noticed that
whenever he would talk I would have a
strong reaction he would make a
recommendation and I would feel like I
was somehow lesser than or I wasn’t as
good as and I wish I had come up with
those ideas I became very defensive with
him I would criticize I would make
excuses I would blame and my defensive
nough sprang to defensive nasaan his end
and eventually our relationship
deteriorated to the point where he left
the company because of it a huge cost to
the company to the team certainly to
each of us and our relationship so
there’s another way instead of trying to
escape from our fears it’s by going
toward them if you will instead of being
enlightened it’s to become and darkened
let me give you a metaphor for what I
mean when I was a kid my grandmother had
a little dog named Betina Betina was a
small mutt she was light brown everyone
liked her but occasionally she would
bite your hand now when that happened
most people would simply pull their hand
away and Bettina would just grab on
harder and bite more that’s just like
our fears the more we try to escape them
the harder they bite but my grandmother
was clever
when Bettina would bite her hand she
would firmly but gently push her hand
into the dog’s mouth and Bettina would
gagged for a moment and then stop biting
that’s what we can do when we become
fearful and defensive
we can go toward rather than away we can
in darken and that means to expose what
we’re doing to tell people to say it
here’s what I’m doing here’s how I’m
being defensive
we even exaggerate it and thus take away
all of its power and defuse the
situation it comes down to a simple
statement of truth that I say right in
the moment can’t you see I’m busy being
miserable so how do we do this well the
first step is to notice when I’m
starting to do it now usually when I’m
in a situation that doesn’t feel good
I think it’s the other person they did
something I didn’t like they said
something I didn’t like and so on my
encouragement is that you look at
yourself not to blame yourself that’s
different this is to check what am i
doing and what can I therefore do that
will help let me give you three things
to look for you ever notice that when
somebody is talking in this it doesn’t
feel good you find yourself thinking
about all the ways that you’re going to
refute what they have to say
tell them how they’re wrong how you’re
right instead you might say it directly
or you might say it with a indirect
question are you sure you want to do
that this is what we call being a critic
anyone ever do that so that was me
with my colleague I was very critical of
him it took me years to figure out how
to use this simple statement of truth
several several years later he and I
were talking we wound up working from a
distance in different companies and we
were on the phone and at some point he
brought up an idea and oh I could feel
myself having that old reaction and
almost without thinking about it I found
myself blurting out well I’m about to
criticize your idea but that’s because I
think it’s a good idea and I actually
feel like you’re smarter than I am
and there was a long pause I had no idea
what he was gonna say and he finally
said oh I had no idea I really liked
your ideas that’s why I like having
these conversations with you
we had a very different conversation
after that everything shifted second
thing you can look for do you ever find
yourself in a situation where you you’re
not quite liking it and you start
explaining why we don’t actually need to
do anything why there’s really no
problem it’s no big deal let me tell you
why let me give you a lot of reasons why
that is it’s all good that’s what we say
all right this is called denial anybody
do this yeah so my sister-in-law tells
me that she’s an expert at this
she runs a company and people will come
to her all the time with ideas and
recommendations she says for years she
would feel not so good about that it
touched something that she didn’t like
and so she would explain carefully and
in some great detail why there was no
reason to do anything differently she
would give them statistics and data talk
about their strategy why nothing had to
change whatsoever but the ultimate
answer was no no no with a lot of
explanation no no she said after years
of that she realized that that wasn’t
helping very much not only were no ideas
getting implemented it didn’t help
morale a whole lot and she didn’t really
want to do that so now she says when
somebody comes to her with an idea she
pauses for a moment and then simply says
I’m going to take a couple of days to
get past my defense of this and then I
will get back to you with a response
third thing you can look for again in
those situations where it just starts
feeling not so good do you find yourself
thinking things like this you know
things never go my way people are
insensitive
they never are looking out for my needs
as well as theirs this always happens to
me if something’s gonna go wrong it’s
gonna happen
to me this is called being a victim
anybody find themselves in that spot
once in a while I think that was where
my dad was in that conversation by the
fireplace at least at first but what so
impressed me was that here he was his
body ravaged by Parkinson’s disease and
yet he was still able to notice and stop
and go toward rather than away put his
hand into the dog’s mouth of it and in
darken it and by saying can’t you see
I’m busy being miserable he showed me
and I hope all of us that we can go
toward rather than a way that we can
connect rather than defend and push
people away that we can become more
joyful and and a bit have a bit of humor
in our lives and become more fully alive
thank you
[Applause]
you
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