Right Attitudes

Ideas for Impact

Thought Suppression is Counterproductive

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Thought Suppression is Counterproductive

You can’t make a bad thought go away by trying not to think about it.

Pushing away a thought works, but for a little while. Short-term relief is often worse than no relief, sometimes exacerbating the very emotions you’re hoping to veer off.

Most crutches of choice (drugs, alcohol, tobacco, barbiturates, shopping, or high-carbohydrate foods) offer transitory comfort. The immediate pleasure often gives way to long-term despair, which causes repeated use of the same agent. The consequence is addiction. The same is valid for thought suppression.

Studies have revealed that the more you suppress a thought, the stronger its recoil. For instance, smokers suppressing the thought of cigarettes report that the appeal of smoking comes rushing back with even greater power when they let their guard down. Holding back your thoughts will actually make you think about them more once the period of active suppression is over. In other words, suppressing a thought increases your attachment to it.

Paradoxical Effects of Thought Suppression Persistence creates resistance; the more you try to push thoughts out, the bigger they get. Further, the fleeting relief of thought suppression pushes you away from more effective and lasting approaches, such as gratitude, acceptance, and forgiveness.

Idea for Impact: Suppress Your Thoughts about Suppression

In a world obsessed with positive thinking, many of us have been conditioned to be so averse to “negative emotions” that we don’t recognize them, much less acknowledge them, or give ourselves permission to feel and process them. Thought suppression causes more stress and anxiety than if you confront what you’re trying to forget.

  • Replace unwanted thoughts with thoughts that focus on your goals (e.g., “It feels better to eat a delicious fruit than it does to wolf down a s’more topped with melted chocolate.”)
  • Create an if-then to help you not block unwanted thoughts out but instead plan what you really need to do to act on temptations. Your plans can disrupt the connection between the thought and giving in to temptation. Over time, the thoughts will fade on their own.

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  3. Don’t Be So Hard on Yourself
  4. Cope with Anxiety and Stop Obsessive Worrying by Creating a Worry Box
  5. Expressive Writing Can Help You Heal

Inspirational Quotations #965

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Poetry is life distilled.
—Gwendolyn Brooks (American Poet, Educator)

When your work speaks for itself, don’t interrupt.
—Henry J. Kaiser (American Industrialist)

Don’t abuse your friends and expect them to consider it criticism.
—Elizabeth Taylor (American Actress)

You must take life the way it comes at you and make the best of it.
—Yann Martel (Canadian Novelist)

He travels best that knows when to return.
—Thomas Middleton (English Dramatist)

It’s essential to distinguish between events that are really beyond your control and events you caused yourself.
—Barbara Sher (American Career Coach)

Problems are only opportunities with thorns on them.
—Hugh Miller (Scottish Geologist, Writer)

The person who talks most of his own virtue is often the least virtuous.
—Jawaharlal Nehru (Indian Head of State)

Water is the one substance from which the earth can conceal nothing; it sucks out its innermost secrets and brings them to our very lips.
—Jean Giraudoux (French Novelist, Playwright)

Living in an age of extraordinary events and revolutions, I have learned, from thence this truth, which I desire might be communicated to posterity: that all is vanity which is not honest, and that there is no solid wisdom but in real piety.
—John Evelyn (English Restoration Diarist)

In a way, this diversity is very exciting, but one has at some point to ask: are these real beginnings, or so many false starts?
—Juliet Mitchell (British Feminist, Writer)

Open-mindedness should not be fostered because, as Scripture teaches, Truth is great and will prevail, nor because, as Milton suggests, Truth will always win in a free and open encounter. It should be fostered for its own sake.
—Richard Rorty (American Philosopher)

There is no Truth. There is only the truth within each moment.
—Ramana Maharshi (Indian Hindu Mystic)

The great advantage of living in a large family is that early lesson of life’s essential unfairness.
—Nancy Mitford (English Novelist, Biographer)

Nothing that is really good and God-like dies.
—Ernst Moritz Arndt (German Writer)

The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.
—L. P. Hartley (British Writer, Critic)

One thing I never want to be accused of is not working.
—Don Shula (American Football Coach)

How You Make a Memorable Elevator Speech

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How You Make a Memorable Elevator Speech With an elevator speech, you not only have a short time to elicit someone’s interest but also the added challenge of standing out from the crowd.

Your only goal should be to say something intriguing, memorable, and unique, prompting the prospect to lean in and invite, “Wait … do tell me more.”

I’ve listened to hundreds of elevator languages, and the few that continued out are the ones that sparked a conversation. Sameness and clichés are boring—everything sounds more or less the same. If, on the proverbial elevator, one must decide between ‘different’ or ‘better,’ one would choose ‘different.’ People remember ‘different.’

So, presenting yourself in the best possible light involves saying something snappy and ditching the details. Be concise and coherent, but not vague. Appear mysterious and confident, but not arrogant.

Idea for Impact: With an elevator speech, you’ll be forgotten if you aren’t unique and memorable. Rehearse your message well and be ready to perform it flawlessly at a moment’s notice.

P.S. My elevator speech: “Hi, My name’s Nagesh. I’m an investor. I’m just like Warren Buffett, except that I deal with a lot fewer zeros than him.”

Wondering what to read next?

  1. Deliver The Punchline First
  2. Persuade Others to See Things Your Way: Use Aristotle’s Ethos, Logos, Pathos, and Timing
  3. Facts Alone Can’t Sell: Lessons from the Intel Pentium Integer Bug Disaster
  4. Here’s a Tactic to Sell Change: As a Natural Progression
  5. This Manager’s Change Initiatives Lacked Ethos, Pathos, Logos: Case Study on Aristotle’s Persuasion Framework

How to … Prepare to Be Interviewed by The Media

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How to Prepare to Be Interviewed by The Media

I’ve never stumbled upon a media guest who’s not been unhappy with the results of an on-camera interview. Most feel they looked nervous or uncertain, bumbled over their words or didn’t get across with clarity, or the interviewer focused on the wrong stuff.

  • Rehearse and practice. Prepare for your interview by dress-rehearsing through your talking points with a colleague. Record it, review the footage, and look at your articulation and body language. Do you appear calm, coherent, and confident?
  • Television draws attention to your posture, energy, and facial expression. Keep eye contact. Focus on the person asking the questions and not on the camera. The more your eyes move around, the less trustworthy you’ll appear. Align how you look with how you want to be perceived—dress in a dark suit to appear serious, roll your sleeves up to appear hard-working, and don a polo shirt if your message is fun and informal.
  • Know your message. Before the interview begins, decide on the three key points you want to get across and stick with them. Three is easy enough to remember. It’ll prevent you from getting caught up in the conversations in your head.
  • Figure out your story. Think through the essence of what it is you need to communicate. Get your facts straight. Think about what you are trying to get across and how you can make that story relevant and understandable to your audience.
  • Restrain yourself from thinking aloud. Keep your anecdotes short; don’t overestimate the fascination your audience will have with your personal life stories.
  • Avoid verbal fillers such as “um” and “ah” that can really hurt how you come across.
  • 'The Media Training Bible' by Brad Phillips (ISBN 0988322005) Allow yourself a second to collect your thoughts and structure your answer. Resist the temptation to think of additional details as you narrate the answer. You can provide a consistent and well-reasoned answer by sticking to the details and structure you had planned for. Be concise. Do not ramble on. Keep your soundbites short and your anecdotes simple.
  • Be prepared to be interrupted and sidetracked. If you have nothing to say about something, say nothing. Better still, if you know what you’ll be interviewed for, have something substantial to say about it and say it regardless of the questions you’re asked. Use transitional phrases such as “I think the real question is …,” “What’s important here is,” or “Let me draw attention to” and redirect the conversation if necessary.

If you’re in a position that requires you to speak to the media often, take a course or get a coach who can train you on becoming an effective spokesperson. An excellent resource is Media Training Bible (2012) by media trainer Brad Phillips.

Wondering what to read next?

  1. Facts Alone Can’t Sell: Lessons from the Intel Pentium Integer Bug Disaster
  2. Here’s a Tactic to Sell Change: As a Natural Progression
  3. The Rule of Three
  4. Persuade Others to See Things Your Way: Use Aristotle’s Ethos, Logos, Pathos, and Timing
  5. This Manager’s Change Initiatives Lacked Ethos, Pathos, Logos: Case Study on Aristotle’s Persuasion Framework

Inspirational Quotations #964

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You don’t concentrate on risks. You concentrate on results. No risk is too great to prevent the necessary job from getting done.
—Chuck Yeager (American Aviator)

No trumpets sound when the important decisions of our life are made. Destiny is made known silently.
—Agnes de Mille (American Dancer)

You only have power over people so long as you don’t take everything away from them. But when you’ve robbed a man of everything he’s no longer in your power—he’s free again.
—Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (Russian Novelist)

If the track is tough and the hill is rough, THINKING you can just ain’t enough!
—Shel Silverstein (American Cartoonist, Author)

Always be smarter than the people who hire you.
—Lena Horne (American Singer, Actress)

The feeble tremble before opinion, the foolish defy it, the wise judge it, the skillful direct it.
—Madame Roland (French Revolutionary)

Life is a gathering to which only a limited number are invited at a time, and the invitation is never repeated.
—Hans Carossa (German Novelist)

We have to learn to be our own best friends because we fall too easily into the trap of being our own worst enemies.
—Roderick Thorp (American Novelist)

The voice you hear when you read to yourself is the clearest voice: you speak it speaking to you.
—Thomas Lux (American Poet)

Like an old gold-panning prospector, you must resign yourself to digging up a lot of sand from which you will later patiently wash out a few minute particles of gold ore.
—Dorothy Bryant (American Novelist)

Hollywood never knew there was a Vietnam War until they made the movie.
—Jerry Stiller (American Actor, Comedian)

Don’t let anyone rob you of your imagination, your creativity, or your curiosity. It’s your place in the world; it’s your life. Go on and do all you can with it, and make it the life you want to live.
—Mae Jemison (American Physician, Astronaut)

The body has to be utilized for service to others. More bliss can be got from serving others than from merely serving oneself.
—Sathya Sai Baba (Indian Hindu Religious Leader)

A man always has two reasons for what he does good one, and the real one.
—J. P. Morgan (American Financier, Philanthropist)

Books in Brief: ‘Flying Blind’ and the Crisis at Boeing

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'Boeing Flying Blind' by Peter Robison (ISBN 0385546491) Bloomberg investigative journalist Peter Robison’s thoroughly researched Flying Blind: The 737 MAX Tragedy and the Fall of Boeing (2022) offers noteworthy lessons about corporate responsibility and leadership problem-solving.

In a nutshell, starting in the late 1990s, Boeing shifted from a company run by engineers who emphasized product integrity to one run by MBA-types who prized shareholder value over long-term product planning. Inspired by General Electric’s Jack Welch, the company embraced cost-cutting, outsourcing, financial engineering, union-busting, and co-opting regulators. These miscalculated strategies culminated in the 737 MAX disasters and disgraceful corporate responses.

Recommendation: Read Peter Robison’s Flying Blind, but be wary of the author’s broad-brush political biases, which, I found, sidetracked from the storyline. The internal organizational tensions that led to corporate deception and the fateful consequences of federal regulators’ consigning design approvals to Boeing are particularly interesting.

Key Takeaway: Negligent engineering to minimize costs and adhere to a delivery schedule is a symptom of ethical blight.

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Hooked on Feeling Needed?

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Hooked on Feeling Needed: Helicopter Parenting Fosters Failure If, like many people, you just can’t say ‘no,’ consider if you’re hooked on feeling needed.

Take a hard, long look at yourself and examine if you unwittingly encourage—even need—people to come to you for every little thing.

Do you find affirmation in feeling needed? Do you try to do too much for others? Faced with an unpleasant task, do you look to turn our attention elsewhere? Do others’ interruptions offer reasons to do what you needn’t do and excuses to avoid doing what you’re supposed to do?

Idea for Impact: The greatest gift you can give those who need you is carving out time for your own critical tasks so you can be available when they really need you.

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When Someone Misuses Your Gift

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When Someone Misuses Your Gift A gift is only a gift if it’s a joy to receive. It’s not an imposition about relevance.

A gift that inspires you may be a bad choice for the recipient. (I once received a gift certificate for an upscale steakhouse and got the phone promptly slammed on when I called to inquire about vegan dining options.) Or the recipient may think you’re using gifts to buy their affection or assert your preferences.

It’s understandable to feel disappointed when your gift isn’t used as you intended. Try to get over it. You gave the gift out of choice, and now you have no control over how the recipient uses the gift.

Getting your gift misused doesn’t mean they’re rejecting you. It just means that you have dissimilar tastes and preferences—a trait that most relationships should weather.

If you perceive you’ve hurt the recipient’s feelings, apologize and retract the gift in favor of something more appealing to the recipient.

Idea for Impact: Gift without expectations. And don’t expect to get it right always with your gift choices.

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  5. Stop Trying to Fix Things, Just Listen!

Make the Problem Yours

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Ownership & Stewardship: Think and Act Like an Owner From a profile of The Gillette Company’s then-CEO Jim Kilts in the 20-Dec-2002 issue of Fortune magazine:

At a meeting with all his division chiefs, Kilts asked for a show of hands: “How many of you think our costs are too high?” Everyone in the room immediately raised his hand. Then he asked, “How many of you think costs are too high in your department?” Not a single hand went up. According to Kilts, it’s a common response among managers of companies in trouble: Everyone knows there’s a problem, it’s just that nobody thinks it’s his problem. And that’s where Kilts comes in: He’ll make it his problem–and yours, if you plan on keeping your job.

Idea for Impact: Make the problem yours. Think and act like an owner.

One of the most underrated skills most employees lack is ownership/stewardship—taking responsibility for results, recognizing when things aren’t working, and getting problems solved.

Plus, teams mirror initiative-takers. When someone starts to take ownership, other people see that, and they’re likely to take ownership of their bits as well.

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How Not to Handle a Bad Boss

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How Not to Handle a Bad Boss Demanding bosses come in an assortment of guises: idealists, megalomaniacs, overbearing tyrants, windbags, windbags, narcissists, micromanagers, and so on. And you’ll work for some at various stages in your career.

But no matter the boss type, attaching labels like demanding or overbearing can eventually turn into a self-fulfilling prophecy. The moment you label someone as problematic, you’ve made them more challenging to work with because you’ll no longer give this person the benefit of the doubt. You’ll not relate with them on a productive level.

Idea for Impact: Focus instead on recognizing the boss’s specific behaviors. Calibrate yourself to match your boss’s style, and build a strategic liaison founded on expectations for yourself and the relationship.

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