Clausewitz on Love (Strategy that wins)

WHAT IS MORE IMPORTANT TO WIN THAN WAR AND WOMEN?
Carl von Clausewitz is arguably the best military strategist who ever lived. But if you read about his love affair with his wife, you will see that strategy is strategy and winning is winning. And it will may you rethink the term "emotional intelligence."

See my new ebook "Clausewitz on Winning Women" - email me at sdunn@susandunn.cc to order or click HERE.
















Carl von Clausewitz, Prussian officer who fought against the French in the Napoleanis wars, and was a master military strategist

“At the heart of strategy there must be a heart that knows what to do with strategy."
-- von Clausewitz

Here is the last love letter he wrote his wife of many years, shortly before he died in a cholera epidemic in 1831:

What causes me deep sorrow is that I did not take greater care of you—it was not my fault. I thank you, dear angel, for the help you have given me in life,

When I first beheld you, I felt
As though in the presence of an angel’s majesty
I trembled through and through
And my heart whispered a childlike prayer;
Stay, kind stranger, stay here in this world below;
Through your eyes‘ beautiful gaze, bless and
Lead me back to life’s tranquil peace
From all the storms of life!
You gave me your hand in friendship
Under an angel’s protective wing
Our path sings gently through life
And in heaven resides our bliss
Do you recognize these lines?

They were there at the outset of our alliance, and should be there at the end, as well. I embrace you dear angel, until we meet again in better circumstances.
__________________

Carl von Clausewitz was a 19th-century Prussian general and is considered by many to be the great military strategist who ever lived. He was studied by Eisenhower, Kissinger, Patton, Chairman Mao, and others.

Clausewitz sought to understand and analyse the phenomenon of war so that future leaders could conduct and win conflicts more effectively.

He studied not only the tactical and technological side of war, but also the human and social factors. Two things he mentions which favor winning, which you might now expect to hear are, the assistance of the people and the use of great moral forces.

What is wonderful to those of us who most strategize, teach others to, and strategize for others, are his real-world insights.

1. "Yet this is nothing but wretched book learning," he says
2. "If you wish to enter that theater of strategy you must abandon all hope of finding the certainties and control to which they are accustomed in other pursuits and consider the surrender of such hopes as a rite of passage in strategy."
3. Friction – unexpected interference – is what makes the seemingly easy so difficult. It is inevitable. "…[T]he general [and the rest of us trying to do anything] must have knowledge of friction in order to overcome it, where possible, and in order not to expect a level of precision in his operations that simply cannot be achieved owing to this very friction."
4. Negativity capacity, that it is not always clear - "being at ease when in bafflement or doubt and not seeking escapes at any cost."
5. "The weaker the defender's morale, the more brazen the attack must be."
6. The nature of "military genius" involces matters of personality and character, beyond intellect
7. "Given the same amount of intelligence, timidity will do a thousand times more damage than audacity."
8. "If you entrench yourself behind strong fortifications, you compel the enemy seek a solution elsewhere."
9. WAITING
10. "Never forget that no military leader has ever become great without audacity. If the leader is filled with high ambition and if he pursues his aims with audacity and strength of will, he will reach them in spite of all obstacles."
11. "The majority of people are timid by nature, and that is why they constantly exaggerate danger. All influences on the military leader, therefore, combine to give him a false impression of his opponent's strength, and from this arises a new source of indecision."
12. "After we have thought out everything carefully in advance and have sought and found without prejudice the most plausible plan, we must not be ready to abandon it at the slightest provocation. Should this certainty be lacking, we must tell ourselves that nothing is accomplished in warfare without daring; that the nature of war certainly does not let us see at all times where we are going; that what is probable will always be probable though at the moment it may not seem so; and finally, that we cannot be readily ruined by a single error, if we have made reasonable preparations."
13. "War is the province of chance. In no other sphere of human activity must such a margin be left for this intruder. It increases the uncertainty of every circumstance and deranges the course of events."
14. "The best form of defense is attack."
15. "There is only one decisive victory: the last."
16. "No one starts a war-or rather, no one in his senses ought to do so-without first being clear in his mind what he intends to achieve by that war and how he intends to conduct it."
17. "Pursue one great decisive aim with force and determination."
18. "If the enemy is to be coerced, you must put him in a situation that is even more unpleasant than the sacrifice you call on him to make. The hardships of the situation must not be merely transient - at least not in appearance. Otherwise, the enemy would not give in, but would wait for things to improve."
19. With strategy one does not see at least half the situation with one’s own eyes, rather, everything must be guessed at ad resumed, which decreases one’s level of conviction. As a result most generals become bogged down in ineffectual fears when they should be taking action.
    

Clausewitz love affair with his wife was well-known in Prussian society, and his private life was exemplary. Read more about his "strategy" for love in my ebook, Clausewitz on Winning Women. Mailto:sdunn@susandun.cc.

You will also want to read

ON WAR, by von Clausewitz

Or click HERE to order.

and a great short compilation of his theories, particularly applied to the business world, called

Clausewitz on Strategy: Inspiration and Insight from a Master Strategist
by the Strategy Institute of the Boston Consulting Group



or click HERE

Leo Hurwicz, Nobel Prize, resounding emotional intelligence

At the age of 90, Leonid "Leo" Hurwicz has received the Nobel Prize for Economics, the oldest person to receive this honor.

Leo Hurwicz was born in 1917 and received his LL.M. (master of laws degree) from Warsaw University, Poland in 1938. Was this to be his destiny in life? No, in 1939 he was studying at the London School of Economics, and already was working in his chosen field of economics, with several publications in the pipeline (first came out in 1944).

Hurwicz' life was not an easy one. His Jewish family was displaced to Moscow a few months before the October Revolution, and then returned to Warsaw. According to wikipedia, "After the start of the Second World War, he was forced to move to Portugal, and finally to the United States. When Hitler invaded Poland, Hurwicz became a refugee and continued his studies at Harvard and the University of Chicago. His parents and brother fled Warsaw only to be arrested and sent to Soviet labor camps."

By 1977, Hurwicz was teaching at the University of Minnesota, where he taught for more than half a century (since 1951), and was named Distinguished Fellow of the American Economic Association.

Hurwicz continued his work, and also his dedication to teaching and helping others. In the 50s, he worked with Kenneth Arrow, who became the youngest person to receive the Nobel Economics prize (in 1972). Later, he was the graduate advisor to Daniel McFadden, who received the Economics prize in 2000.

Hurwicz remained steadfast on his path of studying Economics, teaching it, and fostering the growth of others. Accounts of his emotional intelligence are resounding.

According to Minnesota Public radio, he is "known as a gentle and supportive soul with a demanding intellect." One of his colleagues, V. V. Chari described him as "humble ... [h]e treated everybody as his intellectual equal, even though the vast majority of us were not." Chari said Hurwicz' experiences and his ability to connect with ordinary people shaped his high-performing intellect.

U of M President Robert Bruininks said Hurwicz characteristically downplayed his own accomplishments. He also described him as a "very humble person" who was deeply interested in teaching and his students. He described him as "a wonderful, gracious colleague. But through his work, he has had a profound impact on the study of economics around the world."

Typically, when learning of the award, Hurwicz brought it all together. "I really didn't expect it," he said. "There were times when other people said I was on the short list but as time passed and nothing happened I didn't expect the recognition would come because people who were familiar with my work were slowly dying off."

He added, "I realize there's a limit to how many names they can put on a prize, but I just wanted to stress it's not just my own accomplishment but the help, collaboration from these many other people."

In speaking with the Nobel folks on the phone, Hurwicz said, "I hope that others who deserve it also got it, and that of all applications of mechanism design he was most pleased to see it inform welfare economics." (wikipedia.com)

IQ gets us through school. EQ gets us through life.

Want to learn more? Take THE EQ COURSE.
eMail sdunn@susandunn.cc for FREE mini-coaching session.

Countries with Highest Suicide Rate, Highest Consumption of Chocolate and more

I love this stuff. Do you? Email me at sdunn@susandunn.cc for list of all 10 for each category.
EMAIL for free mini-coaching session, sdunn@susandunn.cc.

From today's mailbag:

The deepest oceans in the world, average depth in meters
Pacific, 3,939
Indian, 3,840
Atlantic, 3,575

Longest rivers in the world in kilometers
Nile, 6,693
Amazon 6,436
Yangtze, 6,378

Worlds largest lakes in square kilometers
Caspian Sea, 371,000
Michigan and Huron, 117,610
Superior, 82,100

Largest countries in the world, in million sq. kilometers
Russia, 17.1
Canada, 10.0
China, 9.3
US, 9.2

Countries with most billionaires
US, 269
Japan, 29
Germany, 28
Italy, 17

Top 10 cleanest countries
Finland
Norway
Canada

Countries with greatest population in millions
China, 1,300.0
India 1,080.0
USA, 295.7


Countries with most sirports
US, 14,695
Brasil 3,365
Russia, 2,743

Nations with largest workforce in million eligible workers
China, 767
India, 442
USA, 145

Highest household size
Iraq, 7.7
Equatorial Guinea, 7.5
Pakistan, 6.8

Most births per year, mllions births
India, 24.1
China, 16.7
Nigeria, 5.3

Lowest average birth rates (percent)
Mexico, 9.4
Japan 8.6
Hungary 8.4

Highest life expectance in years
Andorra 83.5
San Marino 81.6
Japan 81.2

Highest death rates per 1,000 population
Botswana 28.92
Angola 25.86
Lesotho 24.79

Highest divorce rates (per 1,000)
Maldives, 10.97
Belarus 4.63
US, 4.34

Countries with higest suicide rate per 100,000 inhabitants per year
Lithuania 42.0
Russia, 37.4
Belarus 35.0
Latvia 34.3

Best European cities to visit
Rome
Florence
Istanbul
Prague

Best honeymoon destinations
Paris
Rome
Venice
Bahamas
Florence

Popular dream cruises
Caribbeans
Alaska
South america
Baltic sea

Top 10 expensive restaurants
Aragawa, Tokyo
Arpege, Paris
Elgensinn farm, Toronto

Most common causes of accidental death
motor vehicle crashes, 43,200
falls 14,900
poisonon 8,000
drowning, 4,000

Bottled water drinking nations in liters per capita
Italy, 177,1
Spain, 156,7
France, 152,5

Biggest alcohol consumption, litres per capita by pop over age 15
Luxembourg, 14.9
Ireland, 14.2
Portugal, 13.0

Best discounty brokers
Fidelity investments 83
Charles schwab 80
e*Trade 676

Best mortgage providers
Countrywide financial corp, 66
bank of amreica, 63
ABN Amro Mortgage, 61

Most popular Cocktails
Sex on the Beach
Orgasm
Manhattan, the original

Art works sold for over $1 million
Picasso, 334
Monet, 249
Renoir, 219

Brightest dogs (understand new commands in less than 5 reps)
Border Collies
Poodle
German Shepherd

Countries with most cows, in millions
India, 226.1
Brazil, 176.5
China, 108.3

Top European Castles
Leeds
Frankenstein
Mont Saint Michel

Ice cream consumers, pint per capita
Australia, 44.3
New Zealand, 33.4
USA, 33

Coffee drinking nations, cups per capita
Finald, 1,686
Denmark, 1,374
Norway, 1,372
Belgium, 1,354

Bread consumers, kg per capita
Ireland, 5.6
UK, 4.8
New Zealand, 2.4

Chocolate consumption, kg per cap
Switzerland, 11.4
UK, 9.5
Belgium, 8.7
Germany, 8.6

Death of a Child

As happens, I was in Sunday School last week and the topic came up about anger with God. One woman said she knew someone who was angry at God. It was someone who had lost their child. No one else had any examples.

This is one of the most beautiful articles I have ever read. I hope it will mean as much to you, as it did to me.
_________________________
GUEST ARTICLE ( do not know the title):

During my first year of college a life-long family friend and mentor tragically lost his son.

Separated by distance, I assumed that his Christian friends, the staff at his church, and his Sunday school class would step in and wrap their arms around him and his wife.


Needless to say I was surprised, one year later, when we were able to finally meet face to face. When I asked him how he and his wife were doing the first words out of his mouth were, “Brian, the church failed us during our greatest time of need.”


Knowing first-hand his maturity and emotional soundness, I was taken back. I thought, “If he said the church failed them, the church must have really failed them.”


Those who experience tragic loss, which I’m sure will include all of us by the time we leave this planet, experience sorrow that defies explanation. C.S. Lewis, struggling to put into words how he felt after losing his wife commented,

“No one ever told me that grief felt so much like fear. I am not afraid, but the sensation is like being afraid. The same fluttering in the stomach, the yawning.
I keep on swallowing.” (A Grief Observed , p. 19)

And if there was ever someone besides Lewis that couldn’t put their finger on the depth of their grief, it had to be Naomi.

The Book of Ruth tells us that Naomi was happily married to a man named Elimilech and together they had two strong sons, Mahlon and Kilion. As life goes, business took her family to a foreign country-a place called Moab. But even in that distant land their family blossomed. Life was good. Then, without even the faintest hint that heartbreak was standing at her door, Naomi’s husband didn’t return home for dinner. Who could have known that their kiss that morning would have been their last? Her sons eventually married, but even their weddings and talk of children couldn’t take away the emptiness she felt.

Finally, in a cruel twist that even Hollywood wouldn’t script, she lost both of her sons. She was devastated, alone and bewildered. Naomi was so broken that Ruth 1:20 tells us that she began asking people to not call her Naomi (meaning “pleasant”) anymore but Mara (meaning “bitter”).

The bright spot, if there can be a bright spot in someone’s tragic loss, is that there was someone who didn’t leave her. Her name was Ruth, her daughter-in-law. We’re told she didn’t offer any deep theological explanations. [emphasis mine]. There’s no record that she tried to provide the “right word” at the “right time.” All we hear is Ruth’s promise in Ruth 1:16, “Where you go I will go, and where you stay, I will stay.” And that’s exactly what she did.


I never asked my friend what his church could have done differently. I didn’t feel that it was my place. My guess? Unlike Ruth, there were probably too many words and too few visits.


About the Author Brian Jones is the author of Second Guessing God: Hanging on When You Can’t See Plan (March 2006) and the founding Senior Pastor of Christ’s Church of the Valley in Collegeville, PA. More information about his writing and speaking can be found at brianjones.com.
______________________

What helped me when my son died, at the age of 21? Those who just came and stayed. And didn't say anything. My older son arrived at my door with his dog (the beautiful Ygraine, a chocolate Lab), a 25 lbs. bag of dog food, her dish and her bed, and said he'd be back for her some time. My sister who came and stayed. She planted some flowers in my garden. Fixed some meals. Ignored many things. Just was present. They didn't call and ask if they could come, they didn't make any demands.

And remembering to breathe. C.S. Lewis says it's like fear. To me, it was continually feeling like I'd been hit in the solar plexus, unable to breathe. When it hit, I would remind myself to breathe. I guess oxygen helps.

Lance Armstrong, an Inspiration

Coaching, isn't just for athletes any more.

Enjoy this inspirational video from Lance Armstrong. ("Don't ever give up. Live strong.")



"Pain is temporary, it may last a minute, or an hour, or a day, if I quit; however, it lasts forever." -Lance Armstrong is a true motivation for anyone who needs their spirits lifted.

"I think I can pull this out." -- one on my clients going through a very difficult time.

Need coaching? eMail me at sdunn@susandunn.cc

"EVERYTHING IN STRATEGY IS VERY SIMPLE, BUT THAT DOES NOT MAKE EVERYTHING EASY." -- Carl von Clausewitz

Susan has been chosen Adult and Senior Development Expert for SelfGrowth.com, the largest self help portal on the Internet rated #1 by google and yahoo. Susan is Attract Your Dream Partner Expert and Step-Parenting Expert for expert.com, and Ask the EQ Expert for WebProNews.

MY TOP TWO STRENGTHS ON THE STRENGTHSFINDER(r) are Deliberative and Strategic. Let me help you sort it out and plan the strategy that works for you. Strategy is everything!

Personal Life Coaching for all your needs.

Doris Lessing, Novel Prize Winner

Congratulations to Doris Lessing, winner of the Novel Prize at the age of 88. According to wikipedia, Lessing is "only the eleventh woman to win the prize in its 106-year history, and also the oldest person ever to win the literature award."

Among other great accomplishments of her lifetime, here is one that struck me as very meaningful. Why would someone do this?

In 1984, she attempted to publish two novels under a pseudonym, Jane Somers, to demonstrate the difficulty new authors faced in trying to break into print. The novels were declined by Lessing's publisher in the UK but accepted by Knopf in the
US.

My mother, born on October 21, 1919, would have said, "Out of the goodness of her heart."
It is quite a gesture. And good for Knopf in the US. :-)

Perhaps it was part of her Sufi ... I love this quote:

"Past the seeker as he prayed came the crippled and the beggar and the beaten.
And seeing them... the seeker cried, ‘Great God, how is it that a loving creator
can see such things and yet do nothing about them?’... God said, ‘I did do
something. I made you.’" -- Sufi saying

It's getting near Thanksgiving. If you have been blessed, let your light shine on the corners of someone else's world, as Lessing did.

If you had been trying to get published for years, you would recognize this gesture of hers for what it is.

Married 17 Years

Today's guest article is about what makes a marriage work.

When I first wrote this article, I was married for 14 years. Now, I'm a happily married woman of 17 years! Sometimes I just need to pinch myself. With a family curse of divorces, I never thought I'd find myself married this long, let alone happily married. We've come a long way in 17 years. It hasn't always been a smooth ride, but it's been a good ride.To be honest, I never thought we'd make it this far. While my husband's mom and dad are a great example of what it means to make a commitment and make your marriage work (they'll be celebrating 53 years in November!), my side of the family has a hard time staying married to each other. In fact, I was so afraid we'd be divorced before we hit our one-year anniversary that I kept my maiden name hyphened with my married name for the first 6 months of my marriage.Today, I can honestly say that I don't worry about divorce and haven't for many years. I think hitting the five year anniversary mark and renewing our vows really helped me put things into perspective. But it was my mom's words that really locked things in for me. One day, while talking about how long I've been married and my initial fears, she said to me, "You broke the family curse. I'm proud of the two of you. You've worked so hard for your marriage. You're a good example. I hope your sister will one day find the kind of love and marriage you have. That is my hope for her."

Why has our marriage lasted 17 years?

Only God truly knows the true answer, but I've come up with a few good reasons:

1. We made a commitment to work things out no matter how hard life gets (and believe me we have had some very rocky and treacherous terrain).
2. We took out the word "obey" in our wedding vows and refused to replace it with something else. We believed we were not each other's property, but a team of decision makers.
3. We take the time to apologize—even when we don't want to. And even if it takes some working up to get the apology out, we work on making it happen.
4. We lift each other up to others because lifting each other up reminds us of why we fell in love with each other in the first place.
5. We accept the fact that we both have baggage that we've brought into this marriage and we've agreed to work through that baggage together.
6. We've learned to listen to one another—even when sometimes it's a boring thing to do.
7. We learned to joke about ourselves and each other.
8. We don't intentionally go around hurting each other.
9. We vent to close friends who can keep our vents in confidence and not hold them against our spouse.
10. We've learned to let our guard down with each other.
11. We trust each other and do what we can to keep that trust.
12. We have faith that the Lord brought us together.
13. We love each other and remind each other of this, often.
14. We understand that marriage takes work and commitment and are willing to do our part to make our marriage work until death do us part.

In 17 years of marriage, I've learned that marriages aren't fairy tales made up of bubbly, happy go-lucky days and nights. They are roller coaster rides with lots of ups and downs. But if you really want to keep that "new puppy-love" feeling alive just toss in some one-on-one time, a little romance, and a lot of forgiveness.

Forgive each other for driving each other crazy, for the little wrongs you've done to one another, and for anything else that isn't a "big deal" in the larger scheme of things.

About The Author:Alyice Edrich is the editor of The Dabbling Mum®, a free parenting publication, and the author of several work from home e-books designed to help parents earn extra cash while spending more time with their children. To learn more, visit http://thedabblingmum.com/ebookstore

Family Tension at the Holidays

THE HOLIDAYS ARE COMING, and with it comes "family" stress. Let me help you during this time!

Guest article today re: same. Why not prepare with some EQ coaching, The EQ course, or the difficult people course. Email sdunn@susandunn.cc .

Why Anger Rises In The Family (And How To Let It Go)
by Brenda Shoshanna

The family is the most common place for anger to erupt. It is also the place where the seeds of anger are sowed. When we live closely with others, when we are bonded to them, attached, dependent or vulnerable, these individuals have the power to affect us deeply. In these relationships our expectations and demands greater.

Images Of The Family
We have strong images of how parents, siblings or children"should" behave. We feel we have the right to demand love and attention from those in the family. Parents have strong feelings that they have the right to loyalty and obedience, just because of their roles, (no matter how they treat their children).

Children often feel the same. There is a common craving for a"happy family", where everyone loves and cares for each other, and where everyone accepts all of each other's difficulties. Unfortunately, this craving is often unfulfilled. For the most part the myth of a happy family is often a dream. Families are often hotbeds of misunderstandings, resentment, sibling rivalry, jealousy, inappropriate expectations and demands and lack of acceptance.

In fact, families are really fine places to work through a great deal of issues and learn how to individuate, grow, love and accept both others and ourselves.Although many of us blame our parents for all that has gone wrong, the fact is that the parent is not the real culprit. It is the smoldering anger that is being held onto that causes the pain. It is the inability to get over disappointment about not having the parent of our dreams. This anger and disappointment can prevent us from growing up and establishing the life thatbest expresses our values and vision today.

Identity And The Family
A major factor that contributes to anger in families is the tendency each member has to identify with the other. Parents feel that children are a reflection of them. Parents also project their worst fears about themselves onto their children, or want their children to make up for errors and disappointments in their own lives. This is a huge mistake, which leads to a great deal of pain. It is interesting to notice how little room there is for differences in most families. Most think that a perfect family is one in which everyone is the same.

Individuation - (Becoming Who You Are)
The most vital process that goes on in the family is the process of individuation. This means that as a child grows they are given the opportunity to discover who they are, to be separate and different from those they love. Some experience differences between themselves and family members as separation, or even rejection. They do not realize that unless family members become who they are, they will not be able to grow and love. Instead, anger develops, deep resentment and pain. The greatest longing most family members have is being known, heard and accepted for who they are. Ultimately, this is experienced as love.

Unfulfilled Needs In The Family
For the rest of this article, go here: http://www.isnare.com/html.php?aid=190902

About The Author: Watch stress and sickness melt away on The Anger Diet, award winning book by top psychologist http://www.theangerdiet.com. Dr Shoshanna, speaker, relationship expert, has helped thousands. Free ezine andarticles, http://www.brendashoshanna.com , topspeaker@yahoo.com. Counseling, workshops available.

Susan Dunn has been chosen Adult and Senior Development Expert for SelfGrowth, the biggest self help portal on the Internet, rated #1 by yahoo and google.

Let her help you through the holidays. Email sdunn@susandunn.cc .

Gratitude ... and Perspective

From the mailbag today.

I AM THANKFUL:

FOR THE WIFE WHO SAYS IT'S HOT DOGS TONIGHT, BECAUSE SHE IS HOME WITH ME, AND NOT OUT WITH SOMEONE ELSE.

FOR THE HUSBAND WHO IS ON THE SOFA BEING A COUCH POTATO, BECAUSE HE IS HOME WITH ME AND NOT OUT AT THE BARS.

FOR THE TEENAGER WHO IS COMPLAINING ABOUT DOING DISHES BECAUSE IT MEANS SHE IS AT HOME, NOT ON THE STREETS.

FOR THE TAXES I PAY BECAUSE IT MEANS I AM EMPLOYED .

FOR THE MESS TO CLEAN AFTER A PARTY BECAUSE IT MEANS I HAVE BEEN SURROUNDED BY FRIENDS.

FOR THE CLOTHES THAT FIT A LITTLE TOO SNUG BECAUSE IT MEANS I HAVE ENOUGH TO EAT.

FOR MY SHADOW THAT WATCHES ME WORK BECAUSE IT MEANS I AM OUT IN THE SUNSHINE.

FOR A LAWN THAT NEEDS MOWING, WINDOWS THAT NEED CLEANING, AND GUTTERS THAT NEED FIXING BECAUSE IT MEANS I HAVE A HOME .

FOR ALL THE COMPLAINING I HEAR ABOUT THE GOVERNMENT BECAUSE IT MEANS WE HAVE FREEDOM OF SPEECH.

FOR THE PARKING SPOT I FIND AT THE FAR END OF THE PARKING LOT BECAUSE IT MEANS I AM CAPABLE OF WALKING AND I HAVE BEEN BLESSED WITH TRANSPORTATION .

FOR MY HUGE HEATING BILL BECAUSE IT MEANS I AM WARM.

FOR THE LADY BEHIND ME IN CHURCH WHO SINGS OFF KEY BECAUSE IT MEANS I CAN HEAR.

FOR THE PILE OF LAUNDRY AND IRONING BECAUSE IT MEANS I HAVE CLOTHES TO WEAR.

FOR WEARINESS AND ACHING MUSCLES AT THE END OF THE DAY BECAUSE IT MEANS I HAVE BEEN CAPABLE OF WORKING HARD.

FOR THE ALARM THAT GOES OFF IN THE EARLY MORNING HOURS BECAUSE IT MEANS I AM ALIVE.

AND FINALLY, FOR TOO MUCH E-MAIL BECAUSE IT MEANS I HAVE FRIENDS WHO ARE THINKING OF ME.

Military Leadership, Business Leadership

John Keegan, former senior lecturer at the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst in the UK, wrote The Mask of Command, which is about military leadership. He wrote about 4 generals -archetypal hero Alexander the Great, anti-hero Wellington, the unheroic Ulysses S. Grant and the false heroic of Hitler.

Keegan lists the qualities he considers necessary for effective military leadership. Among them, he says EXAMPLE is the most important. He writes, "The first and greatest imperative of command is to be present in person. Those who impose risk must be seen to share it..."

Do you think this is also necessary for effective leadership in the business world? In my ezine, I asked readers to write and tell me what they thought.

From the mailbag:

"My favorite boss was my favorite because she was there with us when the rubber hit the road. I remember one time we had to get something to the federal court and all the electricity went out in the building. She sat out in the parking lot with me while we waited for a courier to come pick up the work. She sure didn't have to do that! Another time we had an impossible deadline on a pleading, and instead of throwing it at us, she went into the workroom and helped us get it all assembled and out the door. And she was always calm at these times. It kept us from getting stressed. She was my hero for being there with us at the worst of times. Other bosses I've had just walked out the door, like they didn't want to be around "it". Well we didn't really, either! I don't know that we really needed her to accomplish these things, but the goodwill it engendered was invaluable. It made us go the extra mile." S.D., San Antonio, Tx

"i only quit one job in my whole work life and that was because the boss was so nervous about everything. he tried to hide it too. every time there was a mess, he would leave. he'd say he had to go to lunch or something. he just didn't want to be there when it got hard we could tell. it got to us after a while." S.G., Durham, N.C.

"My boss is really in an impossible situation. Way in over his head (lots of business), and that makes the whole thing disorganized, but there just isn't time to get organized the way it should be, so it is always behind the 8-ball. It makes the work difficult and high-pressure. But he always stay late with us, and he always orders us dinner, whatever we want. I have been there more than once till midnight, but he is there too, red-eyed like the rest of us. It makes a difference." S.A., Dallas, Texas

Write and tell me what you think - sdunn@susandunn.cc .

How Your Fight with Your Partner (and how they fight with YOU) Effects Your Health (and Theirs)

When they say, "You're going to give me a heart attack," they could be right.

Read the full article here: Marital Spats, Taken to Heart - New York Times
RESEARCH CONFIRMING THAT EMOTIONS EFFECT YOUR WELLNESS ... In interesting ways

The way you fight with your spouse can affect your health (and theirs)

From the article:

--32 percent of the men and 23 percent of the women said they typically bottled up their feelings during a marital spat. In men, keeping quiet during a fight didn’t have any measurable effect on health. But women who didn’t speak their minds in those fights were four times as likely to die during the 10-year study period as women who always told their husbands how they felt (from Psychosomatic Medicine).

--Whether the woman reported being in a happy marriage or an unhappy marriage didn’t change her risk.

--According to Dana Crowley Jack, a professor of interdisciplinary studies at Western Washington University in Bellingham, Wash., the self-silencing trait is linked to numerous psychological and physical health risks, including depression, eating disorders and heart disease.

--The emotional tone that men and women take during arguments with a spouse
can also take a toll. The style of argument was a powerful predictor for a man or woman’s risk for underlying heart disease.

--The way the couple interacted was as important a heart risk factor as whether they smoked or had high cholesterol. (Timothy W. Smith, a psychology professor at the University of Utah)

--For women, whether a husband’s arguing style was warm or hostile had the biggest effect on her heart health. A warm style of arguing by either spouse lowered the wife’s risk of heart disease.

--Arguing style affected men and women differently. The level of warmth or hostility had no effect on a man’s heart health. For a man, heart risk increased if disagreements with his wife involved a battle for control. And it didn’t matter whether he or his wife was the one making the controlling comments. **

--Cardiovascular risk was only related to the quality of the couple’s bickering style.

**Example: Man arguing with his wife says: “You really should just listen to me on this."

LEARNING HOW TO MANAGE YOUR EMOTIONS CAN EFFECT YOUR WELLNESS -- AND THAT OF THOSE AROUND YOU. TAKE THE EQ COURSE TO LEARN MORE.

Intermittent Emotional Disorder

Maturity: the elusive detail of personal responsibility by Marsha Petri Sue

From the article:

Maturity is underrated, misunderstood and in a downward spiral. Where will it all end. There is now a new name being given to a disorder that describes people who, in my opinion, don’t use their maturity. It’s called IED or Intermittent Emotional Disorder.

Is this the reason that toxic people and difficult people are on the rise?

Interesting how lack of maturity and personal responsibility continue to have backers. People and groups who come up with excuses as to why bad behavior and
poor choices are not their fault. Now they have another excuse—IED. Intermittent Emotional Disorder is the tag line being used. In the field of psychology, IED really refers to intermittent EXPLOSIVE disorder and is applied to persons who cannot manage their anger, relationships, and/or themselves.

Ms. Sue then gives her answers, including:

Shift to the left-brain where the proper words and actions live. Your right brain kicks in when you are upset and angry. The mental terrorism will spur you on to impulsive deeds and immature actions. Train yourself to count to ten or say, “this is a test, this is only a test. This will not be important in 100 years.” This will help you to stop “awfulizing.”

THE EQ COURSE(c) teaches you about this "shift" process.

She adds, "It takes approximately two hours to recover from anger. In addition, you give your power to others. Is that really what you want?" to which I add, 5 minutes of anger suppresses your immune system for up to 8 hours ... and your immune system IS YOUR HEALTH. (For immune system supplement go HERE.

Ms. Sue quotes Rosalie Hydock, Ph.D., a specialist in human behavior and performance improvement:

“The widespread inability to deal with emotions in an acceptable way is an interesting theme and a logical outcome in a society where several generational
cohorts have been raised to live in the moment with self-gratification rather than long-term consequences as a primary objective. Rather than legitimize this trend with a diagnosis, it might be better to work on developing better emotional control skills.”

Ms. Sue is the author of Toxic People: dealing with difficult people in the workplace without using weapons or duct tape. To order Sue's book, go HERE.

For an effective anger management course, take THE EQ COURSE. Or recommend it to someone who needs it :-). On the Internet, no residency requirement, self-paced, with email support and feedback.

To take the Difficult People course, on the Internet, interactive, go HERE.
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SELF-GROWTH is the #1 ranked Self Improvement Site On The Internet according to Google and Yahoo! Susan Dunn has been chosen ADULT AND SENIOR DEVELOPMENT EXPERT for the massive self growth community served by this information portal. What an honor!

Susan is also ATTRACT YOUR DREAM PARTNER EXPERT for expert.com

and ASK THE EQ EXPERT for WebPro News.

Adult Development

I'm proud to announce that I have just been chosen Adult and Senior Development Expert by the web's largest self growth portal Self Growth! Please visit http://www.selfgrowth.com/experts/susan_dunn.html to learn more.

I am also Attract Your DreamPartner for expert.com and Ask the EQ Expert for WebProNews.

On the Galllup Strengthsfinder, "Strategy" is my #2 strength. Let me help you with life strategy. Email for more information.

Email me at sdunn@susandunn.cc .

EQ IN ACTION

In my Internet course, Dealing with Difficult People, I give a lot of examples of responses in conversation to use when you are being attacked that keep it neutral and keep the situation from escalating.

Here is a good example of that from the book No Ordinary Time by Goodwin, about the life of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Eleanor Roosevelt. At the time (World War II), Eleanor wrote a daily sndicated newspaper column entitled "My Day."

The scenario is that violence and rioting had broken out in Detroit, and Mrs. Roosevelt, a human rights activist was accused. The Jackson Daily News wrote that Eleanor Roosevelt was "morally responsible" for the riot. "It is blood on your hands, Mrs. Roosevelt," they declared on June 22. "You have been personally proclaiming and practicing social quality at the White HOuse and wherever you go, Mrs. Roosevelt. A Detroit resident wrote to the president saying "Mrs. Roosevelt ... [is] somewhat guilty of the race riots due to their coddling of negroes."

Writes Goodwin:

Eleanor responded with composure. "I suppose when one is being forced to realize that an unwelcome change is coming, one must blame it on someone or something," she replied

Click HERE to take the Difficult People course. Just in time for the holidays!

Emotional Intelligence and the Government, UK

"It's not just the left who are attracted by the new ideas. The Tory housing spokesman Michael Gove says public services have to show more "emotional intelligence" in dealing with people and Tory leader David Cameron argues wellbeing should be the object of public policy. But some rightwing thinktanks have started to chip away at wellbeing as a recipe for cutting people's freedom of action. A pamph-let from the Institute of Economic Affairs complained that happiness measures were unreliable and didn't relate either to income inequality or movements in clinically defined depression; at least GDP was securely measurable. The challenge ahead is enormous.

In his article in the SocietyGuardian.co.uk, David Walker asks whether happiness a legitimate aim for public services Special Reports Guardian Unlimited Politics. "Government does health and wealth, sure, but it is now being charged with looking after our inward state. How well can it do wellbeing, asks David Walker.

He proceeds to write:

"The declaration of American independence, drawing on a bright Enlightenment idea, declared happiness to be a human right. But what has government got to do with wellbeing? Should the state do less, which became the American ideal, or intervene more to remedy the causes of unhappiness?"

Oops. One of the first things we learn in school should be how to read the words that are written. One of the next things we learn about the American Declaration of Independence is that what was/is guaranteed is not "happiness," but "the pursuit of happiness."

Big difference there.

This interesting article proceeds to take a swing at many big issues, admitting that the challenge ahead is enormous. Tidbits:

--Interest is growing in the complex (and often non-monetary) sources of human wellbeing, including a sustainable relationship with the physical environment.
--On the table lies the radical suggestion that the government might make us happier by stopping us consuming. How we measure progress is under fire. Professor Allister McGregor, leader of a wellbeing research team at Bath University, says "human flourishing" brings much-needed attention to how much power people exercise, rather than where they fit in the economy.
--A tornado is sweeping through the social sciences as narrow, money-focused ways of thinking about progress give way to wider appraisals of being well and happy. Politicians and policy makers, too, are rethinking what government can do to make people feel more positive.
--A high-level group has just been appointed by the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills on "mental capital and wellbeing".
--The Big Lottery Fund recently announced a wellbeing programme, which seemed to embrace the entirety of physical and mental health in the north-east. In practice it may mean grants for mental health projects, though the causes of ill-being could be traced deep into policy for housing, transport, employment and, more controversially still, the distribution of income and wealth.
--Where do you start and where stop appraising whether policy makes us happier.
--...[R]ecently, the health minister Ivan Lewis expanded provision of this talking therapy. The evidence suggests it can be highly beneficial for people in difficulties, preventing them slipping into joblessness or hopelessness. But taking wellbeing seriously might imply a much sharper look at what the rest of the NHS does, subverting the balance between primary care and what hospitals do.
--Government papers now routinely refer to health and wellbeing as twin objectives, at least admitting the possibility that spending money on doctors doesn't necessarily lead to enhanced wellbeing.
--Only 10% of the causes of happiness have to do with where we fit in the social order, according to new psychological studies. What matters much more is "mindset", according to Professor Felicia Huppert of the University of Cambridge. She reports that it's the belief that what you do can affect your position that matters: believing you are destined to do badly at school, say, is linked to unhappiness.
--The idea that the purpose of government is to tend to the happiness of citizens is far from new - it underpins Jeremy Bentham's late 18th century principle of utility. What is new is the belief that governments can and ought to get inside our heads, reducing stress.
--Wellbeing is at once an utterly banal and a revolutionary idea. Of course there has to be more to life, and public policy, than money. But imagine how differently the recent sub-national review would have read if a round notion of wellbeing had been substituted for economic growth. --It's been a while since the American academic Richard Easterlin found that happiness doesn't rise as people's incomes rise, above a certain threshold.
--These days there is a veritable science of happiness drawing on the work of such psychologists as Barry Schwartz, who has shown how more choices - over schools or hospitals, say - can make us miserable. Most of the work deals in aggregates. No one can definitively say what causes happiness on the individual level, though there is plenty of evidence associating unhappiness with lack of income (below a certain threshold), unemployment, stress, divorce or lack of social capital.
--Richard Layard, the former London School of Economics professor and Labour peer, has been arguing a politically ambitious proposition, that raising taxes can make people feel better about the world and themselves.

Just as aside, I have recently been out of the US, and found something that added greatly to my sense of happiness and wellbeing. I found it made me feel happy to have more "personal freedom." To be able to get on a train or streetcar with open windows, no seat belts, no signs about where you could stand and what you could do .. to walk out on a boulder 8,000 ft. above ground that had no chained wall or fenceing or any instructional signs or liability signs .. to be told there were helmets on the table for the ATV ride and left to use my own judgment about my safety. It's one of the things my friends who travel mention a lot. Personal freedom. Is that the "right" to do something stupid if you want to, or don't know? Absolutely. If you hang out an open train window, you could conceivably fall out, and more conceivably get whacked in the head or arm by some object you are passing. It was up to the individual.

There was also a noticeable lack of "train rage" or "streetcar rage" among the riders.

Share your thoughts - sdunn@susandunn.cc .

What is happiness? What guarantees the right to the pursuit of happiness? What do you think?

The emotional intelligence of a great leader (Franklin Delano Roosevelt)

Myspace.com Blogs:susandunncoach MySpace Blog

EQ is short for emotional intelligence. It's some of the most important life skills.

I've been reading NO ORDINARY TIME about Franklin Delano and Eleanor Roosevelt and the war years. Goodwin writes so much about their inside life, and what other's impressions were.

It takes a great deal of emotional intelligence to lead people well. Of course Roosevelt was one of the greatest leaders we have had. Listen to what Goodwin wrote about Franklin Delano Roosevelt:

Through the worst days, Roosevelt remained calm. He followed the course of the attack on the wall charts in his map room, watching comberly as the red pins, signaling German forces, multiplied, forcing the green pins, signaling the United States, into a full retreat. Yet not once, Marshall marveled, did he seek to interfere in any with with [General] Eisenhower's command; not once did her force the Joint Chiefs to explain hos this disaster had been possible. He had relied on these men through the entire war, and he would continue to rely on them now. "In great stress," Marshall declared, "Roosevelt was a strong man."

Roosevelt's steadiness in the midst of the crisis kindled gratitude in Stimson as well. "He has been extremely considerate," Stimson recorded in his diary. "He has really exercised great restraint, for the anxiety on his part must have been very heavy."


Supporting your support staff, and not blowing your top when you're frustrated, stressed or anxious is part of good leadership.

To learn more take the EQ Course. Email me for information, sdunn@susandunn.cc or sign up HERE through PayPal. You will be contacted by return email.

Take THE EQ MAP to find out what yours is. Then call me for coaching - 817-734-1471.

Avoid a Nudge from the Judge

Who Else Wants to Know about Anger Management?

Being able to manage your anger is an important life skill. Everyone has anger, it’s a normal emotion, and, like all emotions, is there to give us information. But how you respond to anger is the difference between living a good life and “a nudge from the judge."

There are all sorts of things that trigger our anger during a day – snarled traffic, a boss in a bad mood, an assistant who doesn’t do what they’re supposed to do, a colleague who is difficult, kids who won’t get ready for school on time, even a headache or an overheated room.

You can see how anger gives us information. For instance if you’re getting heated up because the room temperature is too hot, or its too stuffy, then you know there’s a problem that hopefully you can address. Getting some air in the room, lowering the temperature in the room, moving to another room, or taking off your jacket are some constructive ways to deal with this "information". Lashing out at a colleague or making a poor decision because you can’t think straight are not good ways of dealing with this. The key thing is to be able to get around the anger and think clearly when anger is designed to shut down out thinking!

We tend to get the most feelings of anger with loved ones. It’s ironic, isn’t it. But who do we care more about? And the outcomes seem so important. If your partner has done something that makes you angry, it matters more than the traffic jam or the secretary, simply because we care more about the outcome, so our emotional rheostat is set higher.

Also some people just have a higher rheostat to begin with. You know if you're the type that gets angry really easily. So what to do about it?

Learning how to manage your anger is an important lifeskill and is part of what we call emotional intelligence. There are other emotions, after all, that can cloud our thinking, cause us to self-sabotage, or harm others or ourselves. It all falls under the category of managing emotions intelligently, in other words for your own benefit. You aren't a helpless victim to anger if you know what's going on.

If you’d like to learn more about managing anger, why not consider getting the full-meal-deal and learn about emotions in general – where they come from, why they happen, what they are useful for, and how to respond, not react.

The strongest emotions (like anger) are the ones where we tend to have a knee-jerk reaction. We think we have no choice in what we do about them, and then we get in trouble. We can harm ourselves, others, or our important relationships.

If your boss insults you, there are really all sorts of options. You don’t have to lash out and jeopardize your job, or walk out and quit. You may WANT to do this, but it doesn’t mean you have to. Other things you can do, if you can calm your anger, are: cut the boss some slack because you know he’s having a hard day; take a break and think it through; consider whether there are many good things about your paycheck, so don’t quit; talk it out with your boss at a quiet time; or call a coach and vent.

Emotional intelligence and anger management are all about choices, and making a better life for yourself and those around you. The more options you can find in a situation, the better off you are going to be, and in order to do this you have to understand anger, and understand that you have choices.

When anger happens and you become a robot, you are very predictable to others, and that’s also to your disadvantage. It’s well know in the business world, like with negotiations or in depositions, that if you can make the other person angry, you have “won.” Why would you want to be a victim to your own anger? If you have trigger-anger, always reacting to the same thing, people around you pick up on this and can use it to their advantage, and to your disadvantage. Unfortunately this is a fact of life and it happens. You can learn how to manufacture more options for yourself and quit “losing” – your temper, your advantage, your job, and important relationships.

The most important thing about emotional intelligence is that it can be learned! Why wait?

Take THE EQ COURSE and learn about anger management. You have nothing to lose but losing! This course is 13 weeks, online, with feedback from the instructor. This allows you to take it from the comfort of your home or office, anywhere you have computer Internet access.

Testimonial: "This course changed my life. Thank you!" --KT, Arkansas

FDR and Leadership

Franklin Delano Roosevelt led the US during some of its most turbulent times - from the New Deal, to get us out of the depression, right through World War II. I am currently reading No Ordinary Time, by Goodwin, and Goodwin gives so many insights into the incredible emotional intelligence of this leader, FDR.

Upon learning about the attack on Pearl Harbor, this was FDR's reaction:

The first thing Eleanor [FDR's wife] noticed when she went into her husband's study was his "deadly calm" composure. While his aides and Cabinet members were running in and out in a state of excitement, panic, and irritation, he [FDR] was sitting quietly at his desk, absorbing the news from Hawaii as it continued to flow in -- "each report more terrible than the last." Though he looked strained and tired, Eleanor observed, "he was completely calm. His reaction to any event was always to be calm. If it was something that was bad, he just became almost like an iceberg, and there was never the slightest emotion that was allowed to show.," Sumner Welles agreed with Eleanor 's assessment. In all the situations over the years in
which he had seen the president, he "had never had such reason to admire him."

Beneath the president's imperturbable demeanor, however, Eleanor detected great bitterness and anger toward Japan for the treachery involved in carrying out the surprise attack while the envoys of the two countries were still talking. "I never wanted to have to fight this war on two fronts."

Roosevelt was able to manage the emotions of bitterness, anger, surprise, and whatever else he was feeling, and present a calm face as the leader of the country.

How do you do this? The EQ Course can tell you how to manage your emotions and how to be a better and more effective leader. Combine this with personal coaching, and you can improve your leadership ability. Yes -- it can be learned. Email me for more information, sdunn@susandunn.cc .

Preparing for the Holidays

Lets face it, there is extra stress during the holidays. While the pumpkins are starting to appear on doorsteps, and fall wreaths on doors, you may be getting a feeling in the pit of your stomach.

One of the stressors for some people is the family gatherings. After all, we don't get to choose our families! There may be an uncle that always jerks your chain, or a sister you have trouble getting along with, or maybe your mother is just determined to get everyone to get together and is saying "can't you just get along."

Whatever it is, it's smart to prepare yourself. The EQ Course can help, and also I have a special course called Dealing with Difficult People. To find out more about this course, email me at sdunn@susandunn.cc . It is on the Internet, but it is interactive. You can ask me specific questions by email and dialogue with me about your individual situation.

Here are some of the things people have said you took the course.

"This course got me through it all. Thank you, thank you." -- P.T., Louisiana

"Finally I get it. It wasnt easy for me to see what was going in and like you say ithas been like that for a long time. When I do what it says to do then I'm OK." -- S.D., California

"Thanks for opening my eyes. Now I know how to avoid those touchy areas, and how to keep things from escalating. Very helpful, specific advice and things to say. I will recommend this course to others."

Email me for more information, sdunn@susandunn.cc .
To register for the course on PayPal, go HERE.

The Marathon

Found an interesting blog called Presentation Zen. Many tips on presentations, and he stresses the importance of emotional intelligence.

The author of the blog is writing a book called Presentation Zen and he has also run marathons. I thought this was good to keep in mind. If you're working on a big project, remember the last stretch is the toughest part.

I have run four full marathons in my life, and I have found that producing a book feels pretty similar in at least one regard: no matter how much progress you make, the finish line seems a million miles away. You know you'll get there on schedule, but the closer you get the more you realize that there is still so far to go. Right now I am at about the 20 mile mark in the book writing/designing marathon process. If you have ever run a marathon you know that this last bit—"only a 10K"—is the toughest part.

The Power of Music

THE POWER OF MUSIC (See www.susandunn.cc/vivoperlei.htm) - an important part of emotional intelligence. Music can be very persuasive.

The year is 1941, and FDR is president. It is August 9. Germany has been attacking England and has just turned its attention to Russia. In the meantime, Japan is agitating in the Pacific. The US is deeply divided about "war." Roosevelt is determined to send aid to both England and Russia, while avoiding having the US go to war. Churchill and Roosevelt have agreed to meet in person, for the first time, in the middle of the Atlantic to talk about things. From the book, "No Ordinary Time" by Doris Kearns Goodwin:

Harry Hopkins understood how important it was for the future of both Britain and the U.S. that these two men get along. Knowing both personalities, he could see that they had much in common. But he also feared that the two big egos would clash. In fact, from the moment the two men met, it was clear that they were destined to be not only allies in a common cause, but special friends. Now look at how the meeting was set up.

"On Saturday morning, August 9, the Prince of Wales (Churchill's ship), with her flags flying and her band playing the Sousa march "Stars and Stripes Forever," came within sigh of the Augusta (Roosevelt's ship). "Around us were numerous units big and small from the US navy," Churchill's aide-de-camp recalled. "How hungrily Winston Churchill looked over their firepower. How we needed it!" With the naked eye, the figure of Franklin Delano Roosevelt could be discerned standing on the upper deck, supported by his son Elliott. (remember, he was paralyzed from the waist down from polio). As Churchill boarded the Augusta, the crowd stirred and the navy band struck up "God Save the King." Roosevelt remained still for several instants. Then a smile began to run over his face like a rippling wave and his whole expression turned into one of radiant warmth. " (And so on). (I can't help saying that I LOVE that they greeted one another with each other's MUSIC.)

Then -- after they have discussed things a bit, the particular topic being what to do about Japan, Goodwin writes: "For both Roosevelt and Churchill, the emotional peak of the conference came on Sunday morning, as Roosevelt boarded the Prince of Wales for a religious service, complete with the singing of a dozen common hymns. Holding hymnbooks in their hands, the two leaders joined in song, with hundreds of British and American sailors crowded together side by side, sharing the same books. 'The same language, the same hymns and more or less the same ideals,' Churchill mused that evening. 'I have an idea that something really big may be happening -- something really big.'"

"If nothing else had happened while we were here," Roosevelt later said, the joint service that sunlit morning "would have cemented us." For one brief moment, human togetherness gained ascendancy. "Every word seemed to stir the heart," Churchill attested, "and none who took part in it will forget the spectacle presented --- It was a great hour to live."

GOD SAVE THE KING (QUEEN)



To learn more about emotional intelligence, that THE EQ COURSE. Email sdunn@susandunn.cc for information about coaching, and/or to become a certified coach.

Image from clipart.com.

10 Barriers to Clear Perception and Smart Choices (which EQ can remedy)

10 Barriers to Clear Perception and Smart Choices (which EQ can remedy)

"Everything is self-evident," said Rene Descartes, mathematician and philosopher.

Everything is self-evident if you have high emotional intelligence and are good at reality-testing. If you're clouded with emotions, stuck in the past, inflexible, inauthentic, or inept at verbal and nonverbal communication, alas, everything is not self-evident.

When you develop your emotional intelligence, and the ability to understand and manage your emotions and those of others, you see things clearly. You can avoid the following pitfalls to accurate perception and smart choices:

1. How you WISH things were.
2. How you think things SHOULD be.
3. Believing that how things have always been in the past is the way they are now, and ever will be.
4. Assumptions about situations in-the-moment which seem at the surface level to be similar to experiences and people in the past. Assumptions always need to be checked out.
5. Your persona or inauthentic, unintegrated self, which shifts according to mood, emotion, person and situation leaving you without compass or anchor.
6. Your ability to delude yourself because of lack of self-knowledge.
7. Self-sabotaging because of lack of self-knowledge, self-management and low EQ.
8. Fear, anger, jealousy and other strong emotions which distort thinking.
9. Hearing what you WANT to hear or NEED to hear instead of what's actually being said. Failing to take into account the other person's nonverbal behavior.
10. Distortion from relying on other people's perceptions of reality and/or "catching" their emotions.

IN SUM: We are our emotions. They influence our perception of reality. The more you understand yourself and your own emotions, the better you can understand their effect upon your perceptions of reality and manage them so you can make smart choices.

Emotional Intelligence, being able to process your emotions, means understanding which of your three brains is operating (reptilian, limbic or neocortex), and which brain[s] you need to be in. Emotions guide us and give us information, but sometimes we need to get to the neocortex to make the decision. For instance, you may be angry and feel like hitting someone, but your "thinking brain" will tell you this isn't a wise course of action. By the same token, you may love someone (limbic) while your neocortex keeps giving you reasons not to.

The most important decisions generally need to be made with both the heart and the mind. Here are some examples.

DELUDING YOURSELF
If you strongly desire to like the person you're dealing with, or if you have a need to like them, you may miss what's actually going on. This is what's happened when you hear someone repeat an anecdote, saying, "He did [something mean] BUT HE'S REALLY A NICE PERSON." It's clear to you the person mentioned is NOT "a nice person," because nice people don't do things like that, and you wonder how the person telling you the anecdote can be so mislead.

Another good example is one I read on a Russian bride website. It was giving advice to the male suitors re: such important factors as wanting or not wanting to have children. They cautioned that because the need of the Russian woman to come to the US might be so strong, she would delude the man, because she had truly deluded herself. She would say what the man wanted to hear even if she didn't mean it.

How do you guard yourself against such disillusionment? High EQ, time, reflection, feedback, intuition, and understanding people and their emotions.

HEARING WHAT YOU NEED OR WANT TO HEAR
This can happen when the outcome is very important to you. If it's with a loved one, you may fear rejection or loss and therefore your emotions interfere with what you're hearing. Someone who's been rejected a lot, for instance, will read things into what they're hearing, finding rejection in places where it doesn't exist.

Because of their emotional state, they may jump to conclusions that aren't warranted, or over-react. For instance, if their partner tells them "I don't like it when you talk that way to my mother (which is a behavior which can be changed)," they may hear, "I don't love you" (which is a condemnation of you as a person). This sort of distortion is why it's good to repeat back what you think you've heard in heated discussions where the outcome is important. If you say, "Let me make sure I understood what you said. You said you're angry because I..." this gives the other person the opportunity to clarify what they said or meant, and to correct your misperceptions. This is vital to good communication.

It's common with couples for each person to correct the other saying, "But that's not what you meant" or "That's not what you said." There's never a place for this. By checking it out with the person you give them a chance to self-correct, to correct you, and to establish clear communication about important things.

SELF-SABOTAGE
If you aren't clear about what brain is working, i.e., reptilian, limbic or neocortex, you can do yourself in. One reason coaching is helpful is because it can help you clarify what you're really after, and what fears and obstacles you're throwing in your own path. If you want something but never seem to be able to attain it, it could be that you fear success, or fear failure, or aren't clear about what you want. An example would be wanting to marry someone because you love them (limbic) but talking yourself out of it (neocortex) because your best friend doesn't like him. Your best friend may or may not be perceiving correctly, and is certainly entitled to their opinion, but they aren't the person who will be marrying this man, you are. Therefore you need to get centered in your own feelings and perceptions.

DISTORTION FROM "CATCHING" EMOTIONS
Emotions are contagious. We vary in our ability to protect ourselves from "catching" them, and in our ability to stay centered in our own emotions.

An example of this happened to me the other day. I told a friend I was planning to drive from San Antonio to Houston to pick up my sister at the Houston airport for us to continue on to a vacation in Alabama. Her flight would arrive at Houston International and we both had cell phones. I planned to pick her up out front. It seemed simple enough to me, but the person I related this to said it was "very difficult" and not to try it.

I checked it out with a third person who travels through the Houston airport all the time to find out what on earth the first friend was getting at. The third person said "Just be sure and bring at least $4 worth of quarters for the tollway, and aside from that, there should be no problem."
It turned out I had no trouble whatsoever. When I checked back in with the first person, he was incredulous. If I had listened to his perception of reality, I wouldn't have done something that was actual quite easy to do. I'm sure you can think of many examples in your own life.

This is another situation coaching is good for. People tend to bring their own fears into advice-giving, and think about what they would do and how they would feel instead of being able to see if from your point of view. Whatever your goal, whatever you have in mind, there is someone out there who would be afraid of it.

Whether you want to be an entrepreneur, or marry someone from another culture, move to a Caribbean Island, or write a novel, or bungee jump, there is someone to whom this is a frightening thing who will do their best to discourage you because of their own feelings about it.

Developing your Emotional Intelligence has many benefits. Give it a try! Most people get immediate results and realize immediate improvements in their lives.

Take The EQ Course to learn more, and sign up coaching. Email me at sdunn@susandunn.cc .
Find out why emotional intelligence is so popular. (It's not just a passing fad.)

Learn to Delegate, it's emotionally intelligent

With the holidays coming up, it's a good time to set your intentions. Intentionality is one of the highest emotional intelligence competencies. If means saying what you mean and doing what you say.

Whereas many people leave it at that, I like to add that this applies to your attitude as well. Do you intend to end up frazzled during the holidays, going over budget, screaming at the kids, fighting with your mother-in-law, havein meltdowns and so forth?

I'll be having lots of tips. But right now, consider that one of the best ways to alleviate stress in your life is to learn how to delegate. This is very hard for people with low emotional intelligence. I liked this article a lot, and hope you find it helpful. It's about "your own business," but (and this is part of EQ), it is applicable to many other situations.

(Take the EQ Course to learn more about Intentionality.)

Break the Death Grip of Delegation Dysfunction and Enjoy the Dream of Owning Your Own Business

Delegation dysfunction plagues most small businesses.

Here's how it works: You give something to someone else to do. They put it on the bottom of their pile. You check onit and discover that it's not done. You press them on it, and it finally gets done (with rolled eyes and cold stares). But it's not done right and you end up doing it yourself. That is the definition of dysfunction! "Getting things done through others is a fundamental leadership skill. Indeed, if you can't do it, you're not leading," declares Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan in Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done.

FOUR ESSENTIALS FOR GETTING THINGS DONE THROUGH OTHERS

In spite of this dysfunction, delegation actually does work. More importantly delegation MUST work or we're doomedto doing everything ourselves. Here's what it takes to get things done through others:

1. Clearly identify the jobs that need doing
Effective delegation starts with knowing what needs to bedone. As obvious as that statement sounds, it is where mostbusinesses fail. Strong dynamic leaders have an idea ofwhat they want done, but never communicate it clearly,leaving others trying to read their mind.Not surprisingly, most employees are not good a readingother people's minds. As a result, expectations areunfulfilled and everyone is unhappy. All because no onetook the time to clearly define what needed to be done. Like the old Fram® commercials where a grizzled mechanic says, "You can pay me now or you can pay me later," upfront time spent clarifying expectations saves hours of wasted effort.

2. For each of those jobs specifically state WHO is going to do WHAT by WHEN and HOW (or NOT HOW)?
Here is the blocking and tackling of delegation: Choose the right person to give a project to (WHO), that is the person for whom a task is the best fit for their talent and ability. Specifically outline the parameters of the project (WHAT) and set reasonable deadlines for its completion (WHEN). Also set intermediate milestones toward the completion of those deadlines and check on those milestones faithfully, adjusting them if needed (also WHEN). Finally determine the best practices that should be implemented to complete the project (HOW) and the methodologies that should be avoided entirely (NOT HOW). Again, a little time spent at the beginning of a project-this should take LESS than an hour-reaps big rewards. Write everything down and distribute it to everyone on the project.

3. Provide the time and training for your people to excel at these jobs.
What passes for delegation in most businesses is really dumping. Or what I call "drive-by delegating" where leaders shoot people with a list of things to do and speed away to the next victim. Effective business leaders view delegation as a process NOT an event. It is a process that takes time. Be patient with people and let them adjust to the learning curve of acquiring a new skill. It is also a process that takes training, giving people the tools they need to excel at what they do. The problem is that we wait until the last minute-until we ourselves are utterly overloaded-before we ask for other people's help. We then don't have the time to adequately train our people. But time and training is critical for getting things done through others. Look into the future, even for a few months, and identify the jobs you might ask other people to do. Then get them started on learning those jobs. In others words, stop dumping on your people in the name of delegation. Start developing them into the fully capable employees that they can be.

4. Follow-up each assignment politely, but religiously on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis.
Finally, you must follow-though on everything that you delegate. No exceptions. Inspect what you expect. Don't wait until the end of a project to inspect either. Check in at first daily just for a quick update. As you gain confidence that a project is well underway, have weekly times where you touch base. NEVER, however, let more than a month slip by without meaningful inspection of anything others are doing for you. Accountability accelerates performance. Simple, polite, honest accountability creates a culture of execution within your company. "Follow-through is the cornerstone of execution, and every leader who's good at executing follows though religiously," Execution: The Discipline of GettingThings Done again advises.

ENJOY THE REAL DREAM OF OWNING YOUR OWN BUSINESS
When you break the death grip of delegation dysfunction,you will enjoy being a business owner again. You will have gathered a team of people around you who are just as serious about the success of your small business as you are. Together you conquer the world! That's the dream you had when you started your business.

About the Author:Bill Zipp is a seasoned small business specialist. Bill has spent thousands of hours working with hundreds of business leaders across the country, and his proven program, TheBusiness Fitness™ System, provides a step-by-step plan for building a strong, self-sustaining small business. For aFREE Special Report, The 3 Biggest Killers of SmallBusinesses Today (And What YOU Can Do About Them!) visithttp://www.LeadershipLink.net .

The Honesty of Emotions

A Private Talk On Honesty

In his article, "A Private Talk on Honesty," Harry Palmer, of Avatar(r), talks about honesty.

When I'm coaching in emotional intelligence, I start with the EQ Check-in. It is "How are you feeling ... emotionally ... spiritually ... physically ... mentally?" And then I listen to the answers.

For someone to reply honestly to these questions in everyday life would be rare, wouldn't you say? We walk in the office and say, "How are you?" and the other person replies, "Fine," even though they were robbed the night before, or are going through a difficult divorce.

From the article:

Honesty is a very delicate subject to talk about. In most circles, no one would ever be so tactless as to even bring it up. Pirates, criminals, swindlers and con artists proclaim their honesty most loudly. No wonder it has become a subject that tends to besmirch the speaker at its mere mention.

So I am aware that I am walking on the thin ice of the holier-than-thou, but this is an important subject. Without self-honesty, a person will substitute rationalized thinking for his or her genuine feelings. With such, the question, “What do you feel?” will evoke intellectual speculation (What should I feel?) rather than an actual experience of what is present.

Read the full article here: A Private Talk On Honesty

Emotional expression is one of the EQ competencies. You can see how you measure on it, by taking THE EQ MAP. Then if you'd like to work on your emotional intelligence, give me a call and let's get started.

We'll start with "How are you feeling?" No, really. How are you feeling?

Call 817-734-1471. Email sdunn@susandunn.cc .

The Happy Marriage

In today's mailbag, supposedly written by Michael Gartner, editor of newspapers large and small and president of MBC News. In 1997, he won the Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing.

In conjunction with this, I received this link
http://www.poodwaddle.com/realage.swf for calculating your "real" age and your life expectancy. When you get to the one that rates your marriage, watch what happens if you move to "very happy." If you'd like coaching on relationships email me at sdunn@susandunn.cc . There is nothing more helpful than to increase your emotional intelligence skills. As you'll see on poodwaddle.

Here is the article, entitled NO LEFT TURNS.

>> My father never drove a car. Well, that's not quite right. I should
>> say I never saw him drive a car.
>>
>> He quit driving in 1927, when he was 25 years old, and the last car
>> he drove was a 1926 Whippet.
>>
>> "In those days," he told me when he was in his 90s, "to drive a car
>> you had to do things with your hands, and do things with your feet,
>> and look every which way, and I decided you could walk through life
>> and enjoy it or drive through life and miss it."
>>
>>
>>
>> At which point my mother, a sometimes salty Irishwoman, chimed in:
>> "Oh, bull----!" she said. "He hit a horse."
>>
>> "Well," my father said, "there was that, too."
>>
>> So my brother and I grew up in a household without a car. The
>> neighbors all had cars -- the Kollingses next door had a green
>> 1941 Dodge, the VanLaninghams across the street a gray 1936 Plymouth,
>> the Hopsons two doors down a black 1941 Ford -- but we had none.
>>
>> My father, a newspaperman in Des Moines, would take the streetcar to
>> work and, often as not, walk the 3 miles home. If he took the
>> streetcar home, my mother and brother and I would walk the three
>> blocks to the streetcar stop, meet him and walk home together.
>>
>> My brother, David, was born in 1935, and I was born in 1938, and
>> sometimes, at dinner, we'd ask how come all the neighbors had cars
>> but we had none. "No one in the family drives," my mother would
>> explain, and that was that.
>>
>> But, sometimes, my father would say, "But as soon as one of you boys
>> turns 16, we'll get one." It was as if he wasn't sure which one of us
>> would turn 16 first.
>>
>> But, sure enough , my brother turned 16 before I did, so in 1951 my
>> parents bought a used 1950 Chevrolet from a friend who ran the parts
>> department at a Chevy dealership downtown.
>>
>> It was a four-door, white model, stick shift, fender skirts, loaded
>> with everything, and, since my parents didn't drive, it more or less
>> became my brother's car.
>>
>> Having a car but not being able to drive didn't bother my father, but
>> it didn't make sense to my mother.
>>
>> So in 1952, when she was 43 years old, she asked a friend to teach
>> her to drive. She learned in a nearby cemetery, the place where I
>> learned to drive the following year and where, a generation later, I
>> took my two sons to practice driving. The cemetery probably was my
>> father's idea. "Who can your mother hurt in the cemetery?" I remember
>> him saying more than once.
>>
>> For the next 45 years or so, until she was 90, my mother was the
>> driver in the family. Neither she nor my father had any sense of
>> direction, but he loaded up on maps -- though they seldom left the
>> city limits -- and appointed himself navigator. It seemed to work.
>>
>> Still, they both continued to walk a lot. My mother was a devout
>> Catholic, and my father an equally devout agnostic, an arrangement
>> that didn't seem to bother either of them through their 75 years of
>> marriage.
>>
>> (Yes, 75 years, and they were deeply in love the entire
>> time.)
>>
>> He retired when he was 70, and nearly every morning for the next 20
>> years or so, he would walk with her the mile to St.
>> Augustin's Church. She would walk down and sit in the front pew, and
>> he would wait in the back until he saw which of the parish's two
>> priests was on duty that morning. If it was the pastor, my father
>> then would go out and take a 2-mile walk, meeting my mother at the
>> end of the service and walking her home.
>>
>> If it was the assistant pastor, he'd take just a 1-mile walk and then
>> head back to the church. He called the priests "Father Fast" and
>> "Father Slow."
>>
>> After he retired, my father almost always accompanied my mother
>> whenever she drove anywhere, even if he had no reason to go along. If
>> she were going to the beauty parlor, he'd sit in the car and read, or
>> go take a stroll or, if it was summer, have her keep the engine
>> running so he could listen to the Cubs game on the radio. In the
>> evening, then, when I'd stop by, he'd explain: "The Cubs lost again.
>> The millionaire on second base made a bad throw to the millionaire on
>> first base, so the multimillionaire on third base scored."
>>
>> If she were going to the grocery store, he would go along to carry
>> the bags out -- and to make sure she loaded up on ice cream. As I
>> said, he was always the navigator, and once, when he was 95 and she
>> was 88 and still driving, he said to me, "Do you want to know the
>> secret of a long life?"
>>
>> "I guess so," I said, knowing it probably would be something bizarre.
>>
>> "No left turns," he said.
>>
>> "What?" I asked.
>>
>> "No left turns," he repeated. "Several years ago, your mother and I
>> read an article that said most accidents that old people are in
>> happen when they turn left in front of oncoming traffic.
>>
>> As you get older, your eyesight worsens, and you can lose your depth
>> perception, it said. So your mother and I decided never again to make
>> a left turn."
>>
>> "What?" I said again.
>>
>> "No left turns," he said. "Think about it. Three rights are the same
>> as a left, and that's a lot safer. So we always make three rights."
>>
>> "You're kidding!" I said, and I turned to my mother for support "No,"
>> she said, "your father is right. We make three rights. It works." But
>> then she added: "Except when your father loses count."
>>
>> I was driving at the time, and I almost drove off the road as I
>> started laughing.
>>
>> "Loses count?" I asked.
>>
>> "Yes," my father admitted, "that sometimes happens. But it's not a
>> problem. You just make seven rights, and you're okay again."
>>
>> I couldn't resist. "Do you ever go for 11?" I asked.
>>
>> "No," he said " If we miss it at seven, we just come home and call it
>> a bad day. Besides, nothing in life is so important it can't be put
>> off another day or another week."
>>
>> My mother was never in an accident, but one evening she handed me her
>> car keys and said she had decided to quit driving. That was in 1999,
>> when she was 90.
>>
>> She lived four more years, until 2003. My father died the next year,
>> at 102.
>>
>> They both died in the bungalow they had moved into in
>> 1937 and bought a few years later for $3,000. (Sixty years later, my
>> brother and I paid $8,000 to have a shower put in the tiny bathroom
>> -- the house had never had one. My father would have died then and
>> there if he knew the shower cost nearly three times what he paid for
>> the house.)
>>
>> He continued to walk daily -- he had me get him a treadmill when he
>> was 101 because he was afraid he'd fall on the icy sidewalks but
>> wanted to keep exercising -- and he was of sound mind and sound body
>> until the moment he died.
>>
>> One September afternoon in 2004, he and my son went with me when I
>> had to give a talk in a neighboring town, and it was clear to all
>> three of us that he was wearing out, though we had the usual
>> wide-ranging conversation about politics and newspapers and things in
>> the news.
>>
>> A few weeks earlier, he had told my son, "You know, Mike, the first
>> hundred years are a lot easier than the second hundred."
>> At one point in our drive that Saturday, he said, "You know, I'm
>> probably not going to live much longer."
>>
>> "You're probably right," I said.
>>
>> "Why would you say that?" He countered, somewhat irritated.
>>
>> "Because you're 102 years old," I said.
>>
>> "Yes," he said, "you're right." He stayed in bed all the next day.
>>
>> That night, I suggested to my son and daughter that we sit up with
>> him through the night.
>>
>> He appreciated it, he said, though at one point, apparently seeing us
>> look gloomy, he said:
>>
>> "I would like to make an announcement. No one in this room is dead
>> yet"
>>
>> An hour or so later, he spoke his last words:
>>
>> "I want you to know," he said, clearly and lucidly, "that I am in no
>> pain. I am very comfortable. And I have had as happy a life as anyone
>> on this earth could ever have."
>>
>> A short time later, he died.
>>
>> I miss him a lot, and I think about him a lot. I've wondered now and
>> then how it was that my family and I were so lucky that he lived so
>> long.
>>
>> I can't figure out if it was because he walked through life, Or
>> because he quit taking left turns. "
>>
>> Life is too short to wake up with regrets. So love the people who
>> treat you right. Forget about those who don't. Believe everything
>> happens for a reason. If you get a chance, take it. If it changes
>> your life, let it. Nobody said life would be easy, they just promised
>> it would most likely be worth it."

Emotional Intelligence a Soft Science?

Entrepreneur.com - Blog Network - Networking Now

What a great article this one is -- entitled NETWORKING A SOFT SCIENCE? ONLY TO COLLEGE PROFESSORS.

The author, Dr. Ivan Misner, talks about meeting with the President of a Southern California University along with his Dean for the School of Business, to discuss what the school could be doing better to teach students.

Dr. Misner's answer? "[S]tart teaching courses on networking, social capital and/or emotional intelligence.”

From the article:

I told him that “social capital (which is the study of resources developed through personal and professional relationships) and emotional intelligence (sometimes called EQ for emotional quotient) are key factors to the successful interaction of people with one another.”

I suggested that often people may get hired because of their “IQ” but they will get promoted because of their “EQ.” All of these subjects have a strong influence on someone’s success and there is a wealth of research being developed in each of those areas.

The President looked to his Dean for the School of Business and asked him what he thought. The Dean looked me squarely in the eyes and said, “my professors would never teach that material here!” I asked him “why” and he said, “it’s all soft science.”

Soft science! Teaching people how to interact with people in an effective way is “soft science!” I should not have been surprised. I’ve run into this many times before with college professors in the past. I was just amazed that this progressive university would take such a position.

Great stuff here.
Want to increase YOUR emotional intelligence? Email me at sdunn@susandunn.cc for information on my long-distance training program. Ideal for coaches, mentors, managers, human resources, therapists, doctors, lawyers ... anyone who wants to increase their "social capital." And who doesn't?

www.susandunn.cc

Leadership

In today's mailbag, about leadership:

"It appears we have appointed our worst generals to command forces, and our most gifted and brilliant to edit newspapers. In fact, I discovered by reading newspapers that these editor/geniuses plainly saw all my strategic defects from the start, yet failed to inform me until it was too late. Accordingly, I am readily willing to yield my command to these obviously superior intellects, and I will, in turn, do my best for the Cause by writing editorials - after the fact."
-- Robert E. Lee