Here’s something we all know but don’t think to apply to communication:  feed it and it will grow.  We feed kids and we feed pets and we feed plants and they all grow up big and strong and healthy (sometimes too big…) But feed communication??  How does that work?

It happens every day.  Someone feels a slight (perhaps an unintentional oversight), takes offense, the anger is fed and grows as it is looped repeatedly in the offendee’s head.  (Why would she leave me out of things?  She must really hate me.  She’s done this before and now it’s happening again!  I don’t have to take this kind of treatment!!  Enough – this stops today!!!)  Then the decision is made to address the offender, with less than calm communication – how is it possible to be calm at this point?  (We need to TALK.   I can’t believe you – again!)  This confrontation serves to fan the flames as the offender gets defensive and responds accordingly.  (Excuse me – where do you get off yelling at me?  You’re way out of line!)  And as the anger is fed, so it will grow, with both sides escalating the ensuing argument higher and higher.

Besides anger, it works on other emotions too.  Smile and feed the happiness; spread the cheer and others will catch the joy, brightening their day.  Misery also is contagious – someone starts the negative ball rolling, then others join in the downward spiral (You think you have it bad… let me tell you what happened to ME.)  Feed anything and it will grow.

And indulging in too much of anything will make you sick.

It’s not healthy or good to feed anything too much, which can grow to outsized proportions and be nearly impossible to rein in.  Outsized emotions can turn into permanent behavior traits.  The person with a short fuse, the perpetual sad one, the too happy all the time gal – yeah, you know who I mean. All things need moderation.

So once you recognize that this is a habit and you see it coming, shut it down if you don’t want to play.  Nope, not going to feed into this argumentative loop with you.  The best way to not let that person push your buttons is to tone the emotions way down and be very objective in your outward communication instead of joining in the fray and letting your own emotions run amuck.  (It appears that you are angry about this, so maybe we should walk away and let you cool down.  What?  Still going?  OK, well I’m going to change the subject since I can’t talk to you when you’re like this.)  Very cool and collected and not taking the anger bait.  Don’t feed it and it can’t grow.

Not always that easy to do, but recognizing that this is a communication pattern is the first step.  And it takes two to tango.  Let the person dance alone and the negative emotion should dwindle.  A highly charged emotion left unresponsive loses most of its charge after 90 seconds.  But it takes the full minute and a half and can’t be rushed away.  So let it have its time due, and then some, before re-approaching the person. Time really is a good salve.

Every day when I drive by the Park St and Forest Ave intersection there are homeless on each corner holding any variety of panhandling signs.  Ya gotta admire the creativity and marketing ingenuity of some of those signs. And the fight is on for the viewer’s attention and immediate action.

How do you communicate when you only have a few seconds to motivate someone to act?  That’s also the dilemma that online marketers face with their headlines.

The reallife experts who have this aspect of marketing down cold are the homeless who are panhandling in every major city.  Effective homeless signs are masterful in their communication marketing savvy.  But then they have to be.

Some homeless pros claim to make $182/hour, while $5/hr is a more realistic national average.  But regardless of the amount made, most homeless rely on panhandling as their major source of income.  To appeal, handheld signs are the required medium.  And those signs need to be spot on, delivering an emotional punch in the span of a glance.

What can we learn about communicating from these mini vignettes?  The story factor is the biggest takeaway; deliver an emotional story in a few words.  Can you really tell an effective story in the space of a handheld sign?  Ernest Hemingway proved it was more than possible when he was challenged to tell an ultra short story that would bring tears; he succeeded in 6 words with “For sale: baby shoes. Never worn.”

Here’s another short powerful story, in 12 effective words. “Can’t speak. Can’t walk. No teeth. No job. Dirty diaper. God bless.”  The sign was propped against a swaddled baby lying on the sidewalk.

Humorous stories can work – “Obama is not the only one who wants change” – but humor in homeless signs is best used with walkers in groups, not drivers.  People walking together appreciate a good laugh and often feel the need to reciprocate a clever quip with a donation.  Drawing sympathy by tugging on heartstrings is stronger with drivers. As with most communication channels, you need to really understand what appeals best to your market.

Another hallmark of good communication is to make it personal.  By turning the reader’s eye inward reflects on our shared humanity: “Have you ever felt invisible before?” Or this effective sign: “What if it was you…?”    “Just don’t look away” recognizes the power of drawing the other person in to connect eye to eye.

And when you can do both – tell a story that moves the reader to their own personal interpretation, you score big.  A great example of that is the YouTube video that shows a seated homeless man whose sign (“I’m blind, please help.”) is being largely ignored until a passerby changes it to: “It’s a beautiful day but I CAN’T see it.”  The power of words to change worlds.

We live in a world that is more and more skeptical and cynical.  Yet deep down we all still want to believe.  Believe in miracles, believe in an ideal world, believe in the absolute goodness in all people.  Communication that gets through straight to the heart and makes us feel something real for the other person is effective.  We all secretly want to do our part to make the world a better place; a place where there is no homelessness, no need to beg on any street corner.

What “The Dress” Communicates

“The dress that broke the internet” had a big, though brief, splash just a few short weeks ago, dividing friends and families who stood staunchly on their view of “it’s clearly blue and black!” versus “it’s absolutely white with gold!” – quite polarizing, since to both sides it was no contest, with no room for doubt.

Some people almost came to blows over “the dress”.  How can something so obvious to so many be equally obvious in a different way to so many others?  Hard to understand and we fear what we don’t understand.  So we fight to defend our sanity and our ego.  Because once we take a firm stand, we hate to back down (think: hung juries).  We hate to be wrong and made to look stupid.  “How can you not SEE that this dress is blue with black – what’s wrong with you??”  When egos and name calling are involved, blows and hurt feelings easily follow.

How did this alternate reality happen?

Yes, lighting and different screen pixels had a role, but science gives a biological explanation of why this dichotomy occurred, namely that some people discounted the blue in the dress and came up with the white and gold combo (white being the absence of all color, so without blue nothing is left except no blue, i.e. white).  The real question is why did some peoples’ eyes do this, while others did not?

It happened because some people have more blue ‘cones’ than other people have. (Human vision is a combo of photoreceptors called rods and cones, with lots of rods and fewer cones, responsible for color perception)  Those people with fewer blue cones discounted the blue; those with more blue cones saw the blue and black (black, which includes all colors, needs blue to be seen).

What’s fascinating is that, according to color expert Professor William Lidwell of The University of Houston, blue was the last color to develop in human vision; in the time of Homer and before, no one saw blue as it simply wasn’t a color choice.  Back then human brains did not have the capacity to see that last evolving color.  Now, 1,000 years later, blue is the universally favorite color.  We call earth the blue planet because of beautiful blue skies and blue water.  Imagine a world without blue, how our ancestors 30 generations ago saw the world – disappointing!

What “the dress” really communicates is the willingness of the person to be flexible and allow the consideration of a seemingly impossible possibility.  Is something really not real because it reads false to our eyes?  Do we really believe that we have all the answers?  Must we stand strong on our views, because we can’t accept the idea of conflicting evidence that is hard, if not impossible, to “see”?  Are we willing to suspend our disbelief and allow that perhaps other views can be different, with both as accurate?

What’s true for one person is not necessarily true for another.  But ‘not true’ does not always equal ‘false’.  Now there’s a concept that needs some consideration.  Just because someone doesn’t see what you see doesn’t mean that you’re right and they’re wrong.  You can both be different and both be right; what’s right for one person is their reality and we all live in our own realities.  What your eyes see as right is right for you, pure and simple and TRUE (for you).

The dress communicated not just mental flexibility but also tolerance.  Tolerating different points of view without prejudice.  Instead of being judgmental change to being inquisitive: what’s going on here?  how is this possible? – this is the real message in this optical illusion.  What have you learned about the other person’s communication style, instead of how do I prove to this person that I’m right and they’re wrong?  That’s the win-win in this seeming dichotomy – we’re both right!

What behavior did you clearly see regarding “the dress” color?

Generations come and generations go and with them come language expressions that come in and then go out of style.  To establish independence, the younger generation of kids wants their own vocabulary and way of talking, so they add new words into the vocabulary.  But you have to be of a certain age to use them.  It just sounds weird, like you’re trying too hard to be cool, if you are of an age and are using words from another generation.  Don’t be that person.

Remember when “sick” and “bomb” used to describe something bad?  Recall the days when “groovy” , “boss”, “square”, “bummer”, and life was “a gas”? – ahh, the relic concepts that live only in memory and no longer on tongues.

Since I am well over 40, many expressions today make me wince because they are grossly overused:

“No problem!”, “Enjoy!”,  “At the end of the day”, “not a happy camper”, “It is what it is”, “Have a good day!” and all iterations of it: “Have a great day!”, “Make it a good one!”, “You have a good day!” – this last one is my all time most hated version – don’t tell me what to do, which you don’t even mean anyway!

An overused expression is a cliché, but the people using them turn into a cliché themselves.  Clichés are a reflection of mental laziness – why bother to think and say anything original when you can just fall into the familiar routine of old tired expressions.  Much of language are habits – patterns that we rely on because they are easy.  Don’t need to think – all the heavy lifting has been done for us.  Hey, don’t knock them if they work – hmmm, do they really work?

No one really listens to clichés because they are just filler words and not meant to carry real meaning.  One of the oldest meaningless expressions is the question “How do you do?” which is not meant to be taken literally – heads up: if you get asked this rare question, know that the asker doesn’t give a fig about how you are; it’s a question not expecting a real answer.  If you honestly answer with, “I’m glad you asked; I’m feeling pretty terrible actually… there’s this pain in my back that just won’t go away, and oh those headaches!”  “Yeah, yeah, shut it – I really don’t want to hear all about your numerous medical troubles.”

The correct answer to “How do you do?” is a “How do you do?” right back at the asker.  One good meaningless question deserves another.  And the answer to the second “How do you do?” is silence.  Yes, nothing in reply; you launched the first volley, it was returned, and you don’t get another go.  The conversation then turns to the weather.

How did our communication in polite society get to be meaningless?  Due to constantly seeking shortcuts to save valuable time, we have clipped all of the meaning out of some language.  It must be baffling for foreigners learning English to try to understand the idiomatic part of the language.  Why say something to mean something else, or bother with saying something with no meaning entirely?  We have shortcutted our way to irrelevance.

It is irrelevant if I have a nice day or not.  It is irrelevant if I enjoy something or not.  Sadly, it is irrelevant if I am a happy camper or not, when I have a serious product complaint.

We say things to be nice, because we were raised to be polite boys and girls, and it wouldn’t do to be rude.  So we fill in the silence (we hate silence) with meaningless words, which when spoken in parting are code for “time to leave, on your way now, get going”.  Instead, an honest “Isn’t it about time for you to be leaving?” might be refreshing! (But how very rude!) Since we also hate taking a risk for zero gain, routine rudeness is never going to happen.

What’s that empty overused expression that makes you crazy?

You were Mom’s favorite.  Admit it.  You were.  As the baby in the family, you got away with anything and everything.  How’s that working for you today?

No, you were the favorite – I was always second fiddle to my big, older, better-at-everything sibling.  I could never live up to those high standards in their eyes.  Always trying to please them, never quite succeeding… and now here we are.

Or maybe you were your favorite teacher’s pet – which made her your favorite teacher because she showed you clear favoritism.  And then the teacher became the boss – but this boss is not easy to please.  He’s tough to read and get on his good side, if he even has a good side.  Or not one that you’ve seen anyway.  Might be time to dust off the old resume.

Favoritism is everywhere; it can’t be helped.  Not the rich and powerful Pretty People kind, but the everyday occurrences that we brush up against every day.  We like people who are like us – favoritism.  We give special treatment to physically attract strangers – favoritism (and the Halo Effect).  We have our “right hand man”, our “gal Friday”, our office best buds who get the choice assignments, the best vacation slots, the greater benefit when push comes to shove.

Where does it all start?  Obviously in childhood, where all adult issues start.  Children quickly learn that adults warm up to a cute expression and the good girl/boy routine much better than the demanding, whiny routine (although negative behavior does wear them down, but not as quickly).  Adults as in parents, teachers, coaches, scout leaders.  All adults have their favorites, even while trying not to fully show it, in fairness to the others.

Marilyn vos Savant, the documented smartest woman alive today, wrote about parental favoritism, saying that if you really don’t think you have a favorite child among your children, you’re lying to yourself.  A reader wrote into Dear Abby asking about the playgroup elephant in the room that gathering mothers never talk about, and wondered why those feelings were never admitted to or discussed.

Here’s why: developing children should never be made to feel like there is favoritism in the family.  Outside it’s a big bad world that’s clearly more unfair than fair; but inside the safe cocoon world of the immediate family, there must be the perception of fairness.  Complete and utter fairness.  Otherwise the small developing child has little chance of developing healthy self-esteem.  You can leave an unfair boss, but a young child can’t leave their parents.  And they are ill-equipped to stand up to them, with their little fragile ego paying the price.

What about showing favoritism in the world of teachers and coaches?  That’s the big outside world and gives a good example of “life isn’t fair, so when it goes your way, take it, because it will also swing the other way out of your favor”.  If you’re teacher’s pet, you’re doing something right to earn the favoritism, which can also help you to be even better at your schoolwork.

The coach’s star player is often the star because he works harder to please a coach who believes in him.  A self-fulfilling cycle that comes full circle.  Same for a great employee.  Managers have favorites who do great work, which makes them even more favored because of the caliber of their work, which gets better and better to please the boss.

So favoritism is not a bad thing; it’s actually highly motivating if you’re on the good side of it.  But if you’re not on the good side, look to see what you can do to right the ship and get it to tip in your favor.  Ask: What can I do to help?  What do you need?  What can I do differently?

If it’s too late to change the situation – that boss is never going to dislodge his favorite or add you to the inner circle – look to affect a change at the next place of employment.  Nothing is forever and you have the ability to change your circumstances.

As a parent remember that your children do not have that change ability.  If you communicate favoritism, you are burdening the non-favorite child(ren) with years of hurt that is very hard to undo, if fully at all.  We can have many children, but we all only get one mother and one father.  One of the responsibilities of a parent not to communicate favoritism, which is very real, over nearly 2 decades, a serious job of good parenting..

Next time the topic is: Language For the Over 40 Crowd – some expressions just make us wince!

Were you the favorite?  Are you playing favorites?

Why is communicating – real, true, genuine communicating – so hard?  What should be easy to do, is frankly damn hard to achieve in reality.

We are awash in bad, unclear, largely useless verbiage that at best befuddles the brain and at worse the resulting misdirection causes sizeable disasters.  Sometimes irreversible results.

Our movies are rift with miscommunication, which makes for dramatic and entertaining plotlines.  But in our real world lives, that kind of “entertainment” is best left at the movies.  Large scale personal drama causes frustration, anger, heartache that is very real and often unnecessary.  The desired course of action is always to avoid disaster, yet more often than not we instead court disaster by assuming the other person knows what we know when they don’t.  At least not fully.  And that critical gap can make you worlds apart.

“Be sure to bring the thingamajig with you when you come.”

“Yup”

“So where’s the thingamajig – and why did you bring a whatchamacallit?”

“Hey, you asked for a whatchamacallit”

“No, I distinctly asked for a thingamajig but you thought I meant a whatchamacallit” [I’m right, you’re wrong, nana nana boo boo] “and now it’s too late because you forgot the thingamajig which ruins everything!”  [ensuing drama about to unfold]

“Sorry, I thought you meant the whatchamacallit…”  [the victim, once again]

So why are we so bad at communicating?  If there is no language barrier, why can’t we just spit out the words, in the right way, and be perfectly understandable to the other person?  We know what to say, but somehow we don’t always do it.  And it doesn’t always catch up with us until it does.  Then it’s deadly.  Career deadly…relationship deadly…opportunity deadly…

We’ve all been there with our apologies (“I am SO very sorry; I thought you knew that’s what I meant…”) trailing off into thoughts of “shit, I blew that opportunity, and now he thinks I’m an idiot.  How did that happen…?”  Nothing to do now except apologize even more profusely, eat crow, and slink away.

The reason for our general ineptness is there is just so much going on; we’re just in so much of a rush most of the time trying to get everything done – yeah, yeah, keep telling yourself that.

Truth is: we communicate badly because it’s a habit we’ve fallen into.  An easy habit to just use the old word patterns that have worked fairly well in the past.  Habits continue because the brain doesn’t have to think and goes into automatic behavior mode.  And the few times we get tripped up is not enough to make us change, no matter how annoying or aggravating it may be to the other person.  To change mental habits takes effort.

By adopting the KISS principle we have a fighting chance at communicating clearly most of the time and avoiding unnecessary miscommunication.  Keep (consistently) It (all your communication, even the small stuff) Simple (no big words that could be misunderstood) and Stupid (no complex ideas without proper clarifying, then, importantly, check out loud with the other person for their full understanding).  And if you want to add another S on the end, it would be for Sweet (be nice!  Don’t make the person feel stupid or like a simpleton, just a quick “am I explaining myself clearly?” puts the burden on you.)

Occam’s razor is a principle that summarily states: the simple solution is often the best answer.  It is used in problem solving.  And isn’t much of communication about solving problems?

And Hanlon’s razor states: what you think is malice may instead be mere stupidity.  We cry foul when instead the ignorant beast had no idea or intention of creating the results.  (And the ignorant beast may very well be us.)

Wise men both.  KISS me, KISS others, KISS the world – today and forever..

Next time the topic is: PLAYING FAVORITES – Good idea or bad?  Can you even help it?

Have a KISS example to share?

There are few things certain in life – famously noted as there being only 2: death and taxes – but in today’s world I would add a 3^rd certainty: online exposure.

There are few people without an online profile or an online mention somewhere, and virtually zero businesses that lack online exposure.  It’s this latter that I’ll be focusing on, since personal online presence is up to each person to handle as they see fit.  But for businesses, which are squarely in the public realm, their online branding should not be taken lightly.  Not if the business hopes to have a good business.  It’s just too big of a factor today to ignore the ramifications.  The immediacy of communicating online can be perilous, especially for businesses that offend customers.

Branding is simply defined as the emotion that people feel when they hear a name mentioned.  What the internet has provided the consumer is the ability to communicate their individual emotions into the biggest public arena, with minimal effort and no cost.  Couple this ability with the inherent narcissistic tendency of all to focus on ourselves and bam! -the internet is overrun with every nature of verbosity expounding on very kind of experience.  In short, virtually every experience with almost every business is google-able.

What does this mean for businesses?  They need to be a watchdog on what is swirling all around them regarding their customers’ experiences.  Yes, cultivating the good ones, but since we know that it takes 10 goods to offset each bad, they really must mitigate the disgruntled in the best way possible by communicating with them directly.  And quickly.

It used to be that a happy customer would tell friends if asked for a referral, but an unhappy customer would blab about their experience with up to 10 of their nearest and dearest buds.  Now factor in that the average person has 200 Facebook friends, plus the ease of dashing off a scathing post about an unpleasant experience.  Gone is your mother’s admonishment “not to say anything at all if you can’t say anything nice”, replaced by the quick click of “that felt SO good!”  Businesses should sit up and take notice in a hurry.

I had a most unpleasant experience with a local dentist, Robert DeRice, in my hometown of Portland, ME (see how easy it is to get tagged, if R.DeRice has alerts set up).  First he almost suffocated me with his multiple mouth contraptions for 2 routine cavities, just to make his life easier.  Then he actually lectured me on my bad attitude when I complained about it.  It ended with me $707 poorer (no dental insurance) and him telling me to find another dentist.  Gladly will I take my money to someone who appreciates his clients’ feelings.  That night at my book club I enlisted their sympathies (we love social proof).  I also promptly posted a warning about his poor business demeanor on Yelp.  He obviously cannot control his temper and started a ball rolling that he may well regret.  Hell has no fury like a woman who almost suffocated at the hands of an uncaring dentist!

Later that same week I spent another $700 with a local merchant, an oil company, for nearly 300 gallons of home heating oil.  We have few heating options in Northern New England and winters are cold, so I price shop this item, since #2 heating oil is the same whoever you choose to buy it from.  This supplier was new to me and the price was 2 cents lower than other low price offerings.  Kinda like driving around for a good gas price, only you need 300 gals.  So I set up for next day delivery (standard), left a blank check, returned home and saw that I was charged 2 cents more per gallon than I had agreed to.  Since it was after hours, I called and the owner called me back to berate me for arguing over 2 cents!  Unbelievable!  I represent thousands of dollars in business each season and he’s fighting with me over him honoring the agreed upon price.

These two recent experiences illustrate a couple of points.  1) The way business staff interacts with customers, especially when the situation is less than positive, is critical communication.  And 2) the customer has so much more clout today to express unhappiness, which businesses need to recognize and change their arrogant behavior.  It’s not business as usual anymore with businesses holding all the cards and able to bully at will.  Consumers have much more power now, even one voice, than they ever did before the internet.

Bravo to that.  And businesses, especially those with arrogant owners, you are getting your comeuppance.  It’s a new world and competition to remain relevant is getting fierce.

Next time the topic is: the KISS principle – keeping communication simple is best, right?

Comments on an online situation, given or received?

As we near that date on the calendar that women anticipate (or abhor, if single) and that equally affects men but with a different range of emotions, from fear (of commitment) to remorse (for negligence) – Feb 14^th – it seems perfect timing for a post on the pinnacle of communication: love <3

Love can be communicated in many ways.  Through thoughtfulness, through a look, through an embrace, but final confirmation of genuine love requires the actual words.  Verbally expressing their love can be harder for men because ‘real men’ don’t cry, don’t get emotional, don’t get caught up in all the romantic trappings of females.  The soft side of romance isn’t perceived as being macho.  Love equates to commitment, which definitely limits wandering options.  Culturally we don’t allow any one person to truly have committed love to several partners at the same time.  Ah, man!, it’s tough to live a society that outlaws polygamy.

Do the written words count, or must the profession of love be spoken to be real?  The problem with both forms of communication, when it comes to love, is today’s overuse of the concept, which waters down the meaning.  “Love you!” is gaily tossed around like a meaningless, “Later!” among teens and millennials.  When my daughter was a teenager and I heard her signing off phone calls to a early stage boyfriend with “love you” I knew then that the L word, that used to be gold, had lost much of its shine.  Oh, what a shame!

As a written close to friendly correspondence, “Love, (name)” is right up there with “Hi, (name)” It has become so commonly used that the special glow of the single written word is also gone, but thankfully the 3 word combination is still meaningful.  Adding the “I” in front of “Love” + “you” or “I” in front of “Love you” gives the phrase the personalization needed to imbue it with full meaning.

Much of our feelings on love comes from the way we were raised, in an affectionate home or a more distant environment.  When it was a warm upbringing, it’s easier to receive and deliver affection as an adult.  But when in the young years there was sparse affection, it’s hard to become what we haven’t experienced.  Much though we may wish that things were different.

Yet to many, love is still a heavy word and carries some weight.  Love is steady and constant; it is not fleeting and given lightly.  Love is commitment to caring; it is not frivolously given or withdrawn.  Love is intentional and enduring – whew!  What a lot of responsibility tied up in one concept.

Love has many forms, depending on the relationship.  The love between family members is relative to the person, as is love of friends, and love of pets.  Love is required for healthy living.  Without love, we cannot thrive.  What about hermits and eccentric loners you wonder?  They are the exception to the rule and have so much self-love that they cannot extend their affection to others.  But most people need love in their lives to give their lives meaning.

Oh, there is work certainly, sometimes very important work, with some as so work-driven to love only their work over people.  But at the end, work doesn’t take care of you in old age.  Love is needed, even if ends up being the love of caring strangers.  Love is the affirmation of a life worth living.  We were born, we lived, someone loved us and will remember us when we die.  Without love our existence is dismissible.

So how do we express love on Feb 14^th, as well as on other calendar dates?  One way is to notice what the person you need to tell your true affection for appreciates.  (And I’m staying with the female gender here, because Valentine’s Day is a female holiday in my book, but flip the genders freely as desired.) Is she the visual type –evidenced by being a natty dresser, well put together, good eye for color, accessorized, not a hair out of place?  If so, she will appreciate Valentine gifts, a well chosen card, flowers – a visual demonstration of love.

Is she the auditory type – does she enjoy a good joke, a smart turn of a phrase, in to music?  Then by all means tell her you love her; the words mean everything to an auditory.  Words make it real. And concert or comedy show tickets for a gift wouldn’t hurt either.

Maybe she’s the kinesthetic type – into comfort with clothes and home, is fairly emotional, cries at movies, shows compassionate feelings.  This woman needs a hug – physically demonstrate your love with touch and warm embrace is important.  Also a gift out to dinner or a spa treatment gift certificate would be appreciated over a jewelry or trinket gift.

Too often we think of what WE would like, and just assume that because we would like it, the other person wants the same.  If I want an expensive gift, why wouldn’t the other person also want that?  If a hug is good enough for me, why isn’t it good enough for her?  Why does she NEED me to say “I love you” when she knows how much I care, as demonstrated by my actions?  Because she does, especially if she’s an auditory type.

The word “Love” is still an important part of our lexicon and will never leave our vocabulary.  There is no replacement for the concept of love and all that it embodies.  And the full phrase “I love you” will always be the pinnacle of communication.  Sometimes hard to say, but always worth expressing.

Next time the topic is: Beware the Online Review –the immediacy of communicating online can be perilous, especially to businesses that offend customers.

What’s your love story?

But only if you want to be the kind of person who lives a life without regrets – and who doesn’t want to be that person?  I mean, really, who on their deathbed is thinking, I wish I had more regrets in my life… – no one!  We all want to be at peace at the end, and part of that peace comes from having no regrets.  Too many people think the opposite when they’re old, “my biggest regret is…” as if it’s a given that there will be regrets, with too many to list them all, and a big one popping up to loom large when it’s too late to do anything about it.

Wouldn’t it be nice if we could have a do-over in life?  Or maybe get lots of do-overs, chances to change history.  Oops, that mistake was regrettable; where’s that reset button to push right about now?  No button, loser, you’re screwed and need to live with your behavior, like the adult that you are.

Isn’t that the very definition of maturity? – to buck up and take your licks, own your behavior, claim responsibility when you would rather go home crying to your mommy?  “I take full responsibility” – but what does that mean exactly?  What if whatever happened cannot be made whole; you can’t fix it – where does taking responsibility leave you, except with a whole lot of empty words that don’t amount to squat.

So the answer is to avoid getting yourself into regrettable situations in the first place; situations that you can control.  And since we can only control our own behavior, these would be situations that will end up as personally regrettable, with a great impact on life.  And that aforementioned control is over ourselves; control over our self-communication, our thoughts.

What is the most important question you can ask yourself, to lead a life with few regrets? It is: “Why not?”  Not “why? Why should I do (whatever)?” but “Why not do (whatever)?”  Why not push out of your comfort zone, even just a little bit, to explore the opportunities?  Why not think bigger, set your sights higher, accomplish more?  Why not try and see where it gets you?  Why not consider the possibilities, instead of relying on the familiar and easy default option of not trying?  Why not take the bull by the horns and make peace with you-know-who?  Why not take control of your life instead of letting life take control of you (which is what asking “Why?” does).

“I’ll tell you why not, because I might fail, that’s why” and you feel that your ego can’t take another beating down.  Life is so hard and you just can’t fight it anymore and risk facing another failure.

“I’ll tell you why not, because things are just fine the way they are” and why risk changing things? If it’s not broken, don’t fix it.  It’s easier to ignore the potential of “why not?” instead of glimpsing a future that involves taking unnecessary chances.

“I’ll tell you why not, because I might succeed and then if I do I know deep down I can’t be a victim anymore”, which is the only identity I know and can relate to.  It’s tough to face our deep-rooted demons, and harder still to tame them.  Future regret is perhaps a small price to pay for less misery today.

So who are you?  Who do you want to be?  If you communicate “Why?” to yourself, you send the mental message of complacency, status quo, run of the mill, average Joe.  Which is fine.  Someone, actually lots of someones, have to be average for there to be an average.  The problem is that most of us think we’re way above average.  Not the average Joe/Jane at all.

By communicating “Why not?” to ourselves, we send the mental message of aspiration, inspiration, and change away from run of the mill.  Be that person who thinks “why not?” and you will live a life with fewer regrets.

Next time the topic is: those 3 little words, so hard for some to say: I Love You – why we may have trouble emotionally connecting with others

Have a “why not?” success comment to share?

I’m good at what I do.  “Oh, no you’re not,” whispers that little voice in your head, “and someday someone’s going to you find out and expose you for the fraud that you really are…”

“No one’s going to pay you money for that work… you’ve just been lucky up to this point that you’ve gotten away with fooling people for so long.”  That negative voice pipes up once again.

“Fake it ‘til you make it, and someday it will become real” but that day is not today.  Oh the doubts that someday will ever come, and when it does will you recognize it?

Self-communication is a huge part of self-confidence, self-esteem and self-improvement – but somehow we forget that we can control the self-communication process.  It is not predetermined that negativity, which has at best held back and at worse ruined many lives, must be the only course of action.  You have the control of that little self-defeating voice, of all your thoughts, of ultimately the future you create for yourself – if only you will take command and exercise that control.

“You don’t deserve it.”  “You could have worked much harder than you did.”  “You put in your best effort, but your best is just not good enough, so you will likely fail.”  “If you do succeed, it’s just luck, and the next time you will be caught for not measuring up.”

The Fraud Syndrome, the self-doubting happens to all of us at one time or another, and is especially prevalent among entrepreneurs, who put themselves and their creations out there every day.  Outwardly confident people experience it, arrogance masks it, extroverts suffer as much as introverts.

So why is this the case?  Why do we self-sabotage our efforts?  Sometimes those efforts are for something that we really deeply desire, and then the self-recriminating thoughts can strike at the worst.

Adults are skeptical by nature.  Oh, we started out as true believers (Santa Claus! the Tooth Fairy! Tinkerbell!) but then the reality of a harsh world cured us of our innocence (“you dumb bell – you don’t really believe in that made up stuff do you?”)  Who wants to look like a gullible idiot in a smart world that is trying to laugh at us?  So a little questioning voice develops that is constantly on red alert to avoid embarrassment, “is it for real?”  When that voice turns on our own abilities, a Fraud Syndrome is born.

We hate to be wrong (in neural terms this is the concept of consistency) – once we take a stand on something publically, we maintain our ‘rightness’ for our opinion, unless new evidence gives us an easy out.  So when we put ourselves out there as an expert, there is a strong feeling that it would be really embarrassing to be wrong.  So we beat ourselves up, thinking if I’m wrong, I’m going to discover it myself before someone else can notice it.  The only problem here is that we don’t realize that others want to believe in us and aren’t looking for us to fail.

Another contributing factor is fear of success.  Yes, there is a fear of doing well and all the changes that can come from success.  It doesn’t happen to everyone, but a Fraud Syndrome that is due to a fear of success is a survival mechanism the brain creates to protect us. If we tell ourselves we’re a fraud and are going to be discovered, then likely we will eventually fail (self-fulfilling reality) and then nothing will change.  Problem solved; no success equals maintaining homeostasis.  Yay, L

How do we change things and eliminate the self-sabotaging self-communication of the Fraud Syndrome?

The first step is to acknowledge that you have the power over yourself, power over the thoughts running in your head, power over your behavior that results from those thoughts – action or inaction.  Know them for what they are – just a bad habit, a negative thinking loop that you can turn off.

The next step is to listen for negative words, and stop them when they begin.  Refuse to let them run in your head.  Negative thinking patterns are old tapes that run without abandon and need to be deprogrammed.  Banish every thought that starts with, “you will potentially fail…” that have little merit.

Finally, exercise your power over your thoughts by replacing critical thoughts with positive thoughts.  Acknowledging that you have the power over yourself is not enough, and fairly useless if you don’t use it.  Make those positive thoughts specific (not: you’re great, you’re smart, you’re nice; instead: you’re a good organizer, you’re really good at problem solving, you’re good at putting people at ease when they’re upset).  Give yourself all the credit you deserve.  Put that little voice to work with new words that help, not hurt you.

You’re really important to your psyche.  Your self-communication, the words that you use in your private thoughts, go a long way to contributing to your ability to accomplish.  Be kind to yourself as only you can.  Charity really does begin at home.

Next time the topic is: The most important question to ask yourself– if you want to be the kind of person who lives a life without regrets.

Suffer from the Fraud Syndrome?  Comments welcomed.