Say it Better

Knowing When Fear is a Friend

 A gang rape of a teen girl, took place over several hours at a high school, with onlookers who did nothing.  It happened just last month in an adjacent county to where I live.  Among the many reactions to this horrific incident, here’s the first that’s positive and proactive for women, albeit an action than can seem self-serving.

A local author is co-offering a free self-defense class. As someone who chronicled her recovery from violent abuse in her book, Skinny, Tan and Rich: Unveiling the Myth, Maryanne Comaroto will teach emotional self-defense techniques.  Her colleague will teach physical self-defense techniques.

Comaroto’s core message is “TLC: Trust yourself, love yourself and control yourself."  Reflecting the insights in security firm founder Gavin DeBecker’s excellent book, The Gift of Fear, Comaroto suggests that,  “One of the things we typically don’t do is trust our intuition. It’s the first indicator we maybe in danger.“  

That’s the money quote for me, one I hope each of us has grown into knowing and doing by this stage in our lives.

Whenever you’ve felt profound fear, it was linked to the presence of danger, imminent pain or death.  Said DeBecker in a National Public Radio interview, “When we get a fear signal, our intuition has already made many connections.  When you feel fear, try to ‘link’ it back to a past situation where the feeling that was similar to see if your fear is, in fact, justified.” 

While the media often portrays human violence as random, de Becker points out that it seldom is random. In fact, you can anticipate the patterns of impending danger in most cases, if you listen to your instinct of genuine fear and take action.  DeBecker’s book offers specific criteria for how you can better protect yourself by learning to recognize and act on the intuitive signals you pick up but reject as unfounded.

Worry, on the other hand, is the fear we manufacture.  Worry, anxiety, concern and wariness all have a purpose, but they are not fear.  Any time your dreaded outcome cannot be reasonably linked to pain or death and it isn’t a signal in the presence of danger, then it really should not be confused with fear.  

Worry is a form of self-harassment.

Worry will not bring solutions.  Worry distracts from finding solutions.

To free yourself from worry sooner, understand what it really is.  Most people worry because it provides some secondary reward such as:

• Worry is a way to avoid change; when we worry, we don’t do anything about the matter.

• Worry allows us to avoid admitting powerlessness over something, since worry feels like we’re doing something.  Prayer also makes us feel like we’re doing something, and even the most committed agnostic will admit that prayer is more productive than worry.

•  Worry is a cloying way to have a connection with others.  Worry somehow shows love.  The other side of this is the beleif that not worrying about someone means you don’t care about that person.  As many people who’ve been worried about know well, worry is a poor substitute for love or for taking loving action.

• Worry is a protection against future disappointment.  After you complete an important project where the success of your approach won’t be known for some while, for example, you can worry about it. 

Ostensibly, if you can feel the experience of failure now, rehearse it, so to speak, by worrying about it, then failing won’t feel as bad when it happens.  But how would you want to spend the time while you find out:  worrying, playing or initiating another action on another endeavor?

There is a Pay-off for Worry But Not a Healthy One

For some people, worrying is a “magical amulet”, according to Emotional Intelligence author, Daniel Goleman.  Some people feel it wards off danger.  They truly believe that worrying about something will stop it from happening. 

Most of what people worry about has a low probability of occurring, because we tend to take action about those things we feel are likely to occur.  This means that very often the mere fact that you are worrying about something is a predictor that it isn’t likely to happen.

The connection between real fear and worry is similar to the relationship between pain and suffering.  Pain and fear are necessary and valuable components of life.  Suffering and worry are destructive and unnecessary parts of life.  Worry interrupts clear thinking, wastes time, and shortens your life.

When worrying, ask yourself, “How does this serve me?”

To be freer of fear and yet still get its gift, consider these techniques: 

1. When you feel fear, listen.

2.  When you don’t feel fear, don’t manufacture it.

3. If you find yourself creating worry, explore and discover why.

We Choke on Anxiety

Anxiety, unlike real fear and like worry, is always caused by uncertainty.  it is caused, ultimately, by predictions in which you have little confidence.  If you predict you will be fired and you are certain that your prediction is correct, you don’t have anxiety about being fired, but about the ramifications of losing a job. 

Predictions in which you have a high confidence free you to respond, adjust, feel sadness, accept, prepare, or to do whatever you need to do.  You can reduce your anxiety by improving your predictions, thus increasing your certainty.  It’s worth doing, because the word anxiety, like worry, stems from a root that means “to choke,” and that is just what it does to us. 

Our imaginations can be fertile soil in which worry and anxiety grow from seeds to weeds, but when we assume the imagined outcome is a sure thing, we are in conflict with what Proust called an inexorable law:  “Only that which is absent can be imagined.”  In other words, what you imagine -- just like what you fear -- is not happening.

 

"If you're for de-clawing cats, raise your hand"

How vivid and relevant is the image associated with your cause, club, company, product or organization? 

Clue: Does it get people talking?

The Paw Project, an animal advocacy organization, put this message on a billboard in West Hollywood.

Tip: What credible, briefly-stated points (never more than three) do you provide in support of your image and main message?

At the project’s website learn three gripping points in support of their campaign:

1. The human hand on the billboard is a graphic and anatomically-correct representation of declaw surgery performed on cats.Since a cat's claw grows from within the last bone of its toe, declawing requires the amputation at the last "knuckle."

2. Declawing is one of the most painful surgeries routinely performed by veterinarians according to veterinary experts.

3. There is a dramatic contrast between “a cougar who suffered painful and crippling health problems after declawing, and the natural, pain-free range of movement in an undeclawed healthy cougar” as shown in a video.

By the way, the city of West Hollywood seems to be the first in the U.S. to outlaw the de-clawing of all animals, including domestic cats yet, across the bay from me, San Francisco may follow suit.

 

Could You Slip Your Main Message Into the Conversation Before Colbert…..

… interrupts?  Could you do it without looking obnoxious, foolish or flustered? Watch Bill McKibben stay on message, albeit earnestly as befits his character and his topic yet still look likeable. 

Look for the dry line of humor Bill throws back at Stephen Colbert mid-way through the interview – without either person missing a beat. Perfect foils for each other. 

I doubt that I’d perform on all cylinders about my most passionate cause yet watching this short clip several times does help me practice. There's also the worry that others will stop listening before I stop talking.

The bleeding billboard evokes a reaction…

… akin to the candy bars that call out to you as you wait in the grocer’s check-out lane. In the most important moment both capture your attention. Change your behavior. The candy bar is a “POP” or point of purchase impulse buy.

However the stakes are much higher for the impulsive change evoked by the billboard by the New Zealand highway. The first day it rains every year more people drive carelessly. Some are killed.  The usual admonition, “Drive to the conditions” is dry (’scuse the pun), rational and not behavior-changing. 

Yet when the first rains come blood starts flowing from the boy’s eyes, nose and mouth.  If you are driving by you instantly get the picture.

Slow down.

Like POP the billboard evokes an emotional response at a significant moment.  For New Zealanders it is a teachable moment. So far, no more fatalities on that road since it was installed.

The lesson for us all?  What is an important moment for you to “touch” your customers, colleagues, friends or loved ones?  What behavior would you like to change in that moment?  What image and/or words will evoke that change?

"It happens when nobody is watching”

If an ad stops you in your tracks it must be good.  At a Berlin bus stop a camera detects that you’re looking at an interactive poster. You see a happy-looking couple when staring at the poster.

Yet when you turn away it morphs into an image of the man hitting the woman (“It happens when nobody is watching.”) 

Too bad that Amnesty International only got one of these anti-domestic violence ads. 

This high-profile, high-risk taking non-profit had another attending-grabbing ad format and tagline in 2006 – images on transparent posters with the line ....

           "It's not happening here but it's  happening now." 

Some ads use images with graffiti style words that are raw and apt for the message and audience. 

Others place familiar toys in an unexpected situation. 

For your cause or company what images and tag line or slogan would you use to touch the people you want to reach and influence? Avoid meaningless cliches and empty promises.

Leave Some Things Out

As a non-geek I fell in love with my Flip video because of the things I didn’t have to learn to enjoy using it. Like Skype, it is intuitively simple. No instruction book to feel guilty for not reading.

I am not alone. “I'm snuggled under the covers with Jon Stewart and the remote. The "Evolution/ Schmevolution" skit is funny, but it's been a long day, and I'm fading fast. The promise of technology is that I'm one click away from slumberland. I hit the power button. The picture disappears, but the TV is still glowing a creepy blue that will haunt my dreams if I don't make it go away. I try the TV button. Nothing. The CABLE button. Same....” writes Marrisa Mayer.

Now, Scion got it. They “drastically reduced the number of standard features to allow Generation-Y buyers to make a personal statement by customizing their cars,” observed Matt May. To seduce us into using your products, eliminate extras, suggests Matt May. (Barry Schwartz would agree.)

Leave some things unsaid.

In his book In Pursuit of Elegance, Matt advises removing elements you assume are essential. Become comfortable with leaving a project unfinished, a part of an idea unexplained.

Here’s his premise for such incompleteness. To stand out from the crowd, evoke four elements in your work and life that can add elegance and evoke simplicity and the power to surprise:

1. Seduction
2. Subtraction
3. Symmetry
4. Sustainability

As profitable examples he cites ‘N Out Burger, Zappos and Apple among many others. Simple is hard, yet in a complex world “less is more.” 

In keeping with this premise, I continue to clear away the obstructing underbrush of my life, the clothes I don’t wear, the distracting items of  “ought to” and the organizations that belong to past chapters of my life I’m trusting that what’s left is what most sustains me in the next chapter of the adventure I want my life to be now. 

Where Do You Want People to Focus Their Attention When With You?

Doggles. You’ve got a winning product name when people smile when they hear or read it, want to say it out loud – and repeat it – especially when the name is a spot-on reflection of the product benefit.  Amazing how one single thing can fix our mind on how we view a product, person or situation. 

And, as Victoria Moran points out, even one small change in what we wear can make a big change in what people notice. 

They Don’t Know You. You’ve Got 15 Minutes to Sway

Your bleary-eyed city council members have sat through an hour of angry citizens, appearing one-by-one to attack their motives or earnestly recite a stupefying set of statistics or both.  Now you’re up.  Their decision affects your neighborhood, maybe even your street, perhaps even your home safety or value.  Your lifestyle or even your life may be at stake.  You are just a name to them. You aren’t Colin Powell. How do you get those weary elected officials – plus the restless audience and reporter to see the situation your way?  When it happened to him the Accidental Communicator offered this apt advice.

 Hint: You gain an enormous advantage when you offer the most compelling criteria by which a decision should be made.  Frame or be framed.

Nine Joyful Steps for Making a Big Change Permanent

There is a Tibetan saying "If you want to know your future, look at what you are doing in this moment." This may seem childlike but I find it easiest to make a big change in my life by picturing a very specific and compelling reward for it  - and other rewards for each small step towards that change. What wonderful, new experience will I enjoy? How will I have moved closer to being my true self?

Conversely, what boring, unpleasant or fear-provoking task or person will I now see in a more comfortable light or no longer have to experience at all?

"Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself," wrote Leo Tolstoy. What habit do you want to drop or pick up? From body fat to a bright new job we obsess about but often block our own change. Here are some steps that have proved fruitful for me.

1. Find Your True North to Become More Joyful


There is a Thai word, "sanuk", which means whatever you do, enjoy it with others. First be clear about choosing a habit-changing goal that is powerfully valuable to you. Why put effort in an "ought to do" goal, based on others' wishes for you, when you can serve your true self by going for the one that you'll truly find most satisfying? As Keniche Ohmae wrote in The Borderless World, "Rowing harder does not help if the boat is headed in the wrong direction. Applying more muscle is no solution if the course is off."

Perhaps you are choosing a new habit that is someone else's goal for you, not your own. If you really don't enjoy moving towards that change, you may be acting against your deepest preferences. "Problems that remain persistently insolvable should always be suspected as questions asked in the wrong way," wrote philosopher, Alan Watts in The Book: The Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are.

2. Picture Being Your Hero


Keep picturing the experience of your success when you are tempted to fall back. As Soren Kierkegaard, the 19th Century Danish theologian said, "People celebrate achievements and spotlight heroes but the truly heroic act is not the outcome but in starting out and not knowing if you will succeed. "A vivid imagination," wrote Aristotle, "compels the whole body to obey it." Émille Coué wrote, "It is the imagination and not the will that is the dominating faculty of man. It is a serious mistake to advise people to train their wills; they should learn to control and direct their imaginations."

Keep picturing yourself as the hero who has succeeded to make a self-fulfilling prophecy. Rather than talking about what you are giving up or how you might fail, always think and talk about your goal as the inevitable future - what is going to be.

3. Use Your Internal Homing Device


Look inside for your "Homing Device" - your most powerful motivation or passionate interest that can be related to your goal. As Dr. Beverly Potter wrote in Finding a Path With a Heart: How to Go From Burnout to Bliss, "When we pay attention to our Homing Devices and follow their guidance, we invariably feel right about ourselves and in perfect harmony with people and activities in which we are involved in the moment. . . . Not all targets (goals) are the same. Some are easier to hit. Some are more fun. Compelling targets have a magnetic force that pulls you towards them"

4. Surround Yourself With Mutual Support Systems


To keep your resolve, surround yourself with those who want you to succeed – and who are also on a path of practice.  Agree on shared and individual behaviors that reinforce your mutual support. The authors of Influencers found that is the only way to permanently change.

In The Healing Brain, psychologist Robert Ornstein and physician David Sobel, suggested we learn that the need for community is a key part of our evolutionary heritage and a way we can learn to change. The brain's primary purpose is not to think, but to guard the body from illness and despair. "The brain acts as an internal health maintenance organization, governing everything from the release of stress hormones to the functioning of the immune system.

It now appears that the brain cannot do its job of protecting the body without contact with other people. We have evolved to be dependent on others. Evolution has less regard for the individual than for the survival of the species. For your evolution towards your goal, plant yourself firmly among those who'll reinforce your desired behavior.

5. Involve Your Senses
 to Stay on Your Path

Make your message more real by "coming back to your senses". That is write it down, say it out loud, associate it with something you see, hear, smell, taste and touch every day. Plant Post-It messages on your bathroom mirror and car dashboard. Connect it to the radio morning news voice or music you hear. Tell friends and colleagues. Smell your shampoo or cologne and now associate it with your goal. Brush your teeth and connect the motion towards your goal. See the result in the shape of your doorknob. As Beverly Sills once told a reporter, "You may be disappointed if you fail, but you are doomed if you don't try."

6. Notice Where You Get Detoured

"The hardest thing to learn in life is which bridge to cross and which to burn." wrote David Russell. Notice your pattern for avoiding your course towards your goal. What activities do you use to get sidetracked? What time of day or day of the week is it most likely to happen? What else is happening that can numb you into avoidance? What colleagues and friends help or hinder you on your path?

Discover these patterns now and you will be more powerfully productive towards this and all the next goals you set for yourself. But don't be too hard on yourself when you're not perfect. As Charles Garfield wrote in Peak Performance, "On course doesn't mean perfect. On course means that even when things don't go perfectly, you are in the right direction."

7. Confirm That You're on the Right Path


Look at what happens to you as you are changing. in your life. How are others close to you reacting? What new experiences happen? As Jean Shinoda Bolen wrote in The Tao of Psychology, "Synchronistic events can assure us when we are on the right life path; and advise us when we are not; at the most profund level, they assure us that we are not mere observers but always participants in an interconnected cosmic web." On a more basically worded level, see how the changes you make affect your self-image and your relationships with others. Simply speaking, do you enjoy your life more?

8. Savor the Practice and the Goal


Those who seem to relish their life in this increasingly competitive world have chosen the steady path of mastery of one skill and avidly dabbling in several others.

Like goal setting, the more specific the skill, the more likely the success and sense of satisfaction to be attained. We may not all be as lucky as Billie Jean King (I certainly wasn't) who wrote in her autobiography, Billie Jean, "When I was five or six…(I) told my mother I'd be the best at something; by the time I was twelve, I knew what I'd be best in. But it is never too late in life to choose your best.”

9. Plan a Grand Reward


Before you begin cultivating a new habit toward greater mastery, plan exactly how you will celebrate when you meet your goal – and how you will savor each time you practice. The bigger the change, the larger the reward you deserve. Enable others who supported you, to savor it with you. You might be modeling the motivation they need to begin their path towards mastery. 

Do We Love Fiction More Than Truth and, If So....

As West Wing fans suggested, Jimmy Smit’s character seemed to foreshadow Obama’s rise.  Yet Roy H. Williams describes other startling similarities (for starters Josh Lyman and Rahm Emanuel) – and why such storytelling offers insights to anyone who wants to make something well-known. He describes why “the public is more willing to believe fiction than non-fiction.”  One of the best undercover reporters with whom I ever had the honor to work discovered that his editor was ”strongly discouraged” by certain high level politicians from publishing much of what he uncovered in the Iran Contra story. Not to be stopped, he turned his true story into a film treatment and sold it to Oliver Stone, well-known for “adapting” historic happenings to match his dramatic vision.  While Oliver was also warned to not move forward on the project my friend’s fee for the film treatment was more money than he made in a decade as a reporter. 

Suggestion. From your seat, use your expertise or imagination to follow the money flooding out of Washington.   Who really benefits?  Who are the biggest influencers? Who suffers? What compromises are being made by whom and how do they rationalize them? Write your own true fictional story. See if it turns out to be true.