Maj. Hasan Nidal has made a name for himself that will go down in American history along with the likes of John Wilkes Booth, Lee Harvey Oswald, Sirhan Sirhan, James Earl Ray, the Columbine killers, and etc and so on, ad nausea.
Already it is being batted about in the media that he suffered PRE-traumatic Stress Disorder, or that he was reacting to harassment for being Muslim. And we can be sure that there will be other explanations thrown around, too.
And we can already see that somehow, in some way not yet clear, he was indeed living some kind of wounded life-residing in a rundown $300 a month apartment while earning a salary of 90k a year. We already know as well that he was of the oft recognized in the annals of heinous crime 'loner' personality type, and that he'd been collapsing into the kind of religiosity that any trained mental health professional recognizes as the harbinger of a personality in full scale decline.
I for one am glad he survived his suicide/homicide mission, as that will be punishment at least a little adequate for his massive theft of life and the well being of his survivors. What I know not to expect is any kind of statement from him that will cast light onto his motives, or help us make sense of it all. At some point there will be a statement extracted from him, and I am willing to bet $5 right now that it will be inscrutable, hyper-religious gibberish full of paranoia and self fulfilling prophecy. Clearly, he had somehow worked himself around to a perceived state of victim-hood.
As I have discovered from my three decades in the practice of psychotherapy, when a person sees himself exclusively as a victim, he has freed himself to perpetrate. Hasan Nidal has given the most extreme example of this I've ever seen. This is also the same logic used by any of the fundamentalist and/or homicidal nuts we've seen over the last several decades as rationale for their idiotic solutions to the problems of how differing peoples can co-exist.
Each time a hyper-religious fundamentalist resorts to terrorist tactics, what he fails to see is that he places others of his faith in greater peril by arousing our suspicions about them. I think back to a plane flight I took just a couple days ago when a couple of olive skinned, black bearded young men boarded my flight a few rows ahead of me, and I felt my stomach lurch involuntarily.
The problem we face with Hasan Nidal is how to avoid reaching for explanations or rationales, as none of any worth will emerge, and instead treat his actions for what they were: expressions of human evil.
Those who are most certain that their actions are certified by Divinity are most certainly those who are committing evil....and Nidal should be dealt with as an evildoer. Nothing more, nothing less.
But how to deal with those who continued to certify him for service? When he gave his Grand Rounds lecture in 2008, and the topic was not mental illness but Islam and its current state of siege, how did his superiors not recognize someone who should not be allowed to treat the emotionally and psychologically wounded?
To me, that is the real brain twister.
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Buddhas, Gurus, and Healers
I have recently been fascinated with the story out of Northern Arizona about the loss of three lives during and after the sweat lodge event at a New Age retreat. I was astonished to learn that the participants were folks who had paid ~ $10,000.00 or so for a week long retreat to become 'Spiritual Warriors'.
I was further astonished to discover that these folks had ponied up the big bucks to, among other activities, fast for 36 hours on a mountainside and then pile into a closed, super heated hut with 40 or so people as part of a 'vision quest'.
How is it that these folks were willing to subject themselves to this, where is their 'common sense'? Why was it not obvious that this was not something to participate in? Why are people willing to believe that if you go through some kind of arduous, discomfiting experience it will 'change your life'?
I am not writing to condemn or judge the attendees, but rather out of genuine curiosity about what causes people to suspend their good judgment, their critical functions, and undertake these 'healing' or 'life expanding' practices.
And why is it that commonsensical methods of confronting the difficulties of life that are safe, and without drama are overlooked by those same seekers? I am going to try and propose some answers to these questions, and maybe query deeper, because this issue has intrigued me for as long as I've worked in the field of psychotherapy, which is now over 30 years.
As a young therapist, I had to accept early on that the field was not, is not, one that is highly paid. Starting salaries were below those made by entry level publis school teachers. The hours were long, the patients numerous. I quickly began to look at private practice, and eventually moved into it within five years of leaving grad school. I've been in private practice since 1983.
When surveying the financial landscape of the late 70s, early 80s, I noticed there were certain giants. Wayne Dyer had written an extremely popular book, 'Your Erroneous Zones'; the author of 'I'm OK, You're OK' was raking it in; EST was beginning its massive impact on the culture. It seemed that if you wanted to do well in the field of psychotherapy and human potential, you had to go beyond the idea of simply wading through a weekly schedule of troubled individuals seeking help.
You had to develop a show, a routine, a product, a schtick of some kind. You had to somehow promise or imply that you could help create a more enjoyable life, or remove the obstacles to the enjoyment of same. It seemed it would never be enough to patiently listen to people as they offloaded their cares and concerns, and try to help find solutions to what could change, and accept what couldn't.
Most seeking psychotherapy are not suffering 'mental illness'; rather, they are you and me, the moms and pops and brothers and sisters, and sons and daughters of the world. We who do the best we can with our lives, and from time to time fall prey to all the traps the world and human nature have to offer. The truly evil and truly ill seldom seek help voluntarily.
At any rate, I began to learn that the field was open to the entrepreneurial and opportunistic. If a therapist could appear to provide solutions that were sudden, dramatic, magical, extraordinary, if those solutions, methods, cures etc. could somehow slay the beast of human failure and insecurity, then he was going to see more clients and make more money.
And so, over the years, we've seen providers of every kind of pseudo-scientific healing practice come into the marketplace: there are Voice Print Analysts, Color Therapists, and there are those who insert tubes into peoples' rectums and irrigate their bowels; others will read your feet through Reflexology, and Phrenology is still alive.
There are providers of Iridology, in which the colors of the iris are read. There are Rolfing therapists and Cranio-Sacral Therapists, and those who read auras and others who do Past Life Regression. Some do healing through different scents, and others apply crystals to the forehead, while still others insist that patients buy CDs and listen to them while resting under a pyramid built in the home. Still others will help you walk over a bed of 1100 degree coals, and thereby eliminate 'failure' from your life.
Much of this is what is called New Age. A common fixation in the New Age is the 'toxin'. Many are the therapies and healing procedures intended to remove or flush toxins from the system. For instance, fasting for 36 hours and then plunging into a super heated hut with a bag of nicotine tied around your neck will not only 'flush' all the 'toxins' from your system, and thus rid you of what all has been 'holding you back', but will also completely divest the body of all sugars and electrolytes it needs to keep the major organs and central nervous system running. As these elements disappear from the body, major warning signs in the form of hallucinations occur, signalling breakdown, or, as the healer interprets it, visions and spirits are now visiting and carrying the participant to a 'higher place'.
Why is it that if a solution seems commonsensical and relies on the adult faculty of taking responsibility for oneself and accepting that there are no rapid solutions to the challenges of life, a good number of seekers will look elsewhere?
Or maybe I just answered my own question, but I'll go on for now.
Good psychotherapy proposes that each patient become aware of his or her own part in sustaining the difficulties they are wish to free themselves from. It does not exonerate a perpetual sense of victim-hood, nor does it endorse dangerous, spurious, magical cures. In many ways, it can be said that it also neither 'heals' nor 'cures', in the medical sense.
Rather, it increases awareness and indicates possible paths to change. It is not sudden or dramatic. It does not relieve the Biblical itch to drive the demon out. It suggests that some problems simply come from a resistance to taking responsibility for oneself, and adult solutions come from facing the truth and acting accordingly.
This is not very dramatic or sexy. There are no short-cuts. You do not walk through hot coals, or take a shamanic journey, or become a 'spiritual warrior', or walk with spirits, or take an animal avatar. You simply look the truth in the eye and take heart that responding to it, no matter what you must give up, whether it be the affair, the drugs, the gambling, the dishonesty, whatever, will work out for the best. And that being a perfectly ordinary, self sustaining human in itself is an act of heroic proportions.
And, I suspect that many of us simply don't want to accept that. We hunger for the ecstatic, the epiphanic, the extraordinary. We want to believe that there is something out there, beyond our everyday experience that can lift us up and make life the thrilling adventure we want it to be, like the lives of those who've 'made it' however the culture currently defines such. We don't want to patiently and painstakingly face the truths of our lives, and let go of the drugs, the booze, the gambling, the affair, the dishonesty, the greed, the whatever, and deal with the pain of its loss. We want something, someone, to make it better for us. We want, as Scott Peck pointed out (Peck was one of the honest gurus, in my opinion)our lives to be different, without us having to change.
And to that I would add that we also don't want to accept our lives, as imperfect and filled with struggle, confusion, bewilderment and partial success, as they are. We reflexively attach to Buddhas, Gurus, and Healers, forgetting that what is here and now, right in front of us, transpiring minute by minute, is the life we seek to lead, and the truth is obvious if we would but see it.
In the late 60s, an humbly brilliant man, Sheldon Kopp, composed one of the true masterpieces of self help, entitled If You Meet the Buddha on the Road, Kill Him! He borrowed his title from the old Zen dictum meant to indicate that in our search for the Buddha (enlightenment, coming to terms with oneself), we must accept that the Buddha is not to be found 'out there', on the road. That such Buddhas are false, and dangerous, and must be destroyed, i.e. ignored.
The true Buddha is only found within, through the slow process of accepting life the way it is, and discovering the true self-- a gift that, once found, we would never turn over to someone else, or endanger in any way.
In the end, I feel badly for those individuals who lost their lives in Sedona, for their families, and for the other attendees. I feel badly for them because, quite plainly, they got ripped off, and some paid with their lives.
Let it be said, there is no Buddha on the road, or in the mountains; there is no healing to be had in a fast or sweat lodge; there is no 're-patterning' to be achieved through Voice Print Analysis or Iridology or Color Therapy, there are only people willing to take your money and give you nothing in return.
I was further astonished to discover that these folks had ponied up the big bucks to, among other activities, fast for 36 hours on a mountainside and then pile into a closed, super heated hut with 40 or so people as part of a 'vision quest'.
How is it that these folks were willing to subject themselves to this, where is their 'common sense'? Why was it not obvious that this was not something to participate in? Why are people willing to believe that if you go through some kind of arduous, discomfiting experience it will 'change your life'?
I am not writing to condemn or judge the attendees, but rather out of genuine curiosity about what causes people to suspend their good judgment, their critical functions, and undertake these 'healing' or 'life expanding' practices.
And why is it that commonsensical methods of confronting the difficulties of life that are safe, and without drama are overlooked by those same seekers? I am going to try and propose some answers to these questions, and maybe query deeper, because this issue has intrigued me for as long as I've worked in the field of psychotherapy, which is now over 30 years.
As a young therapist, I had to accept early on that the field was not, is not, one that is highly paid. Starting salaries were below those made by entry level publis school teachers. The hours were long, the patients numerous. I quickly began to look at private practice, and eventually moved into it within five years of leaving grad school. I've been in private practice since 1983.
When surveying the financial landscape of the late 70s, early 80s, I noticed there were certain giants. Wayne Dyer had written an extremely popular book, 'Your Erroneous Zones'; the author of 'I'm OK, You're OK' was raking it in; EST was beginning its massive impact on the culture. It seemed that if you wanted to do well in the field of psychotherapy and human potential, you had to go beyond the idea of simply wading through a weekly schedule of troubled individuals seeking help.
You had to develop a show, a routine, a product, a schtick of some kind. You had to somehow promise or imply that you could help create a more enjoyable life, or remove the obstacles to the enjoyment of same. It seemed it would never be enough to patiently listen to people as they offloaded their cares and concerns, and try to help find solutions to what could change, and accept what couldn't.
Most seeking psychotherapy are not suffering 'mental illness'; rather, they are you and me, the moms and pops and brothers and sisters, and sons and daughters of the world. We who do the best we can with our lives, and from time to time fall prey to all the traps the world and human nature have to offer. The truly evil and truly ill seldom seek help voluntarily.
At any rate, I began to learn that the field was open to the entrepreneurial and opportunistic. If a therapist could appear to provide solutions that were sudden, dramatic, magical, extraordinary, if those solutions, methods, cures etc. could somehow slay the beast of human failure and insecurity, then he was going to see more clients and make more money.
And so, over the years, we've seen providers of every kind of pseudo-scientific healing practice come into the marketplace: there are Voice Print Analysts, Color Therapists, and there are those who insert tubes into peoples' rectums and irrigate their bowels; others will read your feet through Reflexology, and Phrenology is still alive.
There are providers of Iridology, in which the colors of the iris are read. There are Rolfing therapists and Cranio-Sacral Therapists, and those who read auras and others who do Past Life Regression. Some do healing through different scents, and others apply crystals to the forehead, while still others insist that patients buy CDs and listen to them while resting under a pyramid built in the home. Still others will help you walk over a bed of 1100 degree coals, and thereby eliminate 'failure' from your life.
Much of this is what is called New Age. A common fixation in the New Age is the 'toxin'. Many are the therapies and healing procedures intended to remove or flush toxins from the system. For instance, fasting for 36 hours and then plunging into a super heated hut with a bag of nicotine tied around your neck will not only 'flush' all the 'toxins' from your system, and thus rid you of what all has been 'holding you back', but will also completely divest the body of all sugars and electrolytes it needs to keep the major organs and central nervous system running. As these elements disappear from the body, major warning signs in the form of hallucinations occur, signalling breakdown, or, as the healer interprets it, visions and spirits are now visiting and carrying the participant to a 'higher place'.
Why is it that if a solution seems commonsensical and relies on the adult faculty of taking responsibility for oneself and accepting that there are no rapid solutions to the challenges of life, a good number of seekers will look elsewhere?
Or maybe I just answered my own question, but I'll go on for now.
Good psychotherapy proposes that each patient become aware of his or her own part in sustaining the difficulties they are wish to free themselves from. It does not exonerate a perpetual sense of victim-hood, nor does it endorse dangerous, spurious, magical cures. In many ways, it can be said that it also neither 'heals' nor 'cures', in the medical sense.
Rather, it increases awareness and indicates possible paths to change. It is not sudden or dramatic. It does not relieve the Biblical itch to drive the demon out. It suggests that some problems simply come from a resistance to taking responsibility for oneself, and adult solutions come from facing the truth and acting accordingly.
This is not very dramatic or sexy. There are no short-cuts. You do not walk through hot coals, or take a shamanic journey, or become a 'spiritual warrior', or walk with spirits, or take an animal avatar. You simply look the truth in the eye and take heart that responding to it, no matter what you must give up, whether it be the affair, the drugs, the gambling, the dishonesty, whatever, will work out for the best. And that being a perfectly ordinary, self sustaining human in itself is an act of heroic proportions.
And, I suspect that many of us simply don't want to accept that. We hunger for the ecstatic, the epiphanic, the extraordinary. We want to believe that there is something out there, beyond our everyday experience that can lift us up and make life the thrilling adventure we want it to be, like the lives of those who've 'made it' however the culture currently defines such. We don't want to patiently and painstakingly face the truths of our lives, and let go of the drugs, the booze, the gambling, the affair, the dishonesty, the greed, the whatever, and deal with the pain of its loss. We want something, someone, to make it better for us. We want, as Scott Peck pointed out (Peck was one of the honest gurus, in my opinion)our lives to be different, without us having to change.
And to that I would add that we also don't want to accept our lives, as imperfect and filled with struggle, confusion, bewilderment and partial success, as they are. We reflexively attach to Buddhas, Gurus, and Healers, forgetting that what is here and now, right in front of us, transpiring minute by minute, is the life we seek to lead, and the truth is obvious if we would but see it.
In the late 60s, an humbly brilliant man, Sheldon Kopp, composed one of the true masterpieces of self help, entitled If You Meet the Buddha on the Road, Kill Him! He borrowed his title from the old Zen dictum meant to indicate that in our search for the Buddha (enlightenment, coming to terms with oneself), we must accept that the Buddha is not to be found 'out there', on the road. That such Buddhas are false, and dangerous, and must be destroyed, i.e. ignored.
The true Buddha is only found within, through the slow process of accepting life the way it is, and discovering the true self-- a gift that, once found, we would never turn over to someone else, or endanger in any way.
In the end, I feel badly for those individuals who lost their lives in Sedona, for their families, and for the other attendees. I feel badly for them because, quite plainly, they got ripped off, and some paid with their lives.
Let it be said, there is no Buddha on the road, or in the mountains; there is no healing to be had in a fast or sweat lodge; there is no 're-patterning' to be achieved through Voice Print Analysis or Iridology or Color Therapy, there are only people willing to take your money and give you nothing in return.
Monday, August 24, 2009
What Is Honesty?
Is any human being ever completely honest? Is it within human capability to be 'completely honest'? That is, to leave nothing out, and add nothing in?
The lie is an attempt to create an advantage for oneself in the world. We lie actively by communicating that we possess something that the other wants, or don't possess something the other is looking for, when in fact we do.
We lie to get: power, money, sex, the admiration of others (power). Anything else? Oh, yes: to avoid consequences of wrongdoing. Anything else?
And we lie because we think we HAVE to have whatever it is we want, or because we don't think we can withstand the consequences of our wrongdoing, and because we think that lying is the only way to get what we want or don't want.
It is also worth noting that lying seems to be a developmental stage through which we all must pass-- the most chronic and seemingly pathological liars are children. They will lie when they don't have to, or for the fun of it, or in order to get something they covet, or to cover their tracks. From this we can learn that there is something immature about the impulse to lie, and that there is something about honesty that is learned. Or, perhaps, earned.
Honesty in its original usage meant to speak honorably. The honorable person is one who readily accepts the consequences of his actions, whether they are desirable or problematic, he does not shirk the outcome.
Why this investigation of honor and honesty here? Because as service providers, we are all playing a confidence game- that is, we are gaining the confidence of potential clients in order to sell them our services. Our product is intangible- confidence and service. The same as the 'con man'. We walk in a gray zone where the customer buys because he has placed his confidence in us. And of course what separates the professional service provider from the 'con man' is that he provides what he has promised for a fee disclosed at the beginning of the relationship.
This places some providers in a position to think that because they have gained the client's confidence, they can sell them anything, or shoddy service. The lawyer who claims to have taken action on a cause when he hasn't, the physician who prescribes a procedure that is not necessary, the financial adviser who churns the account, etc.
Most notable about issues with honesty in professional practice is that there is no surer way to terminate a career prematurely than by practicing in a less than honorable way.
In honorable practice, there is no trace left behind one's actions, nothing that can be used against the provider after the fact. While those who commit wrongdoing have left at the scene a weapon that can and will be used against them when the time comes, and they will have to face, dishonorably, the consequences of their actions.
The lie is an attempt to create an advantage for oneself in the world. We lie actively by communicating that we possess something that the other wants, or don't possess something the other is looking for, when in fact we do.
We lie to get: power, money, sex, the admiration of others (power). Anything else? Oh, yes: to avoid consequences of wrongdoing. Anything else?
And we lie because we think we HAVE to have whatever it is we want, or because we don't think we can withstand the consequences of our wrongdoing, and because we think that lying is the only way to get what we want or don't want.
It is also worth noting that lying seems to be a developmental stage through which we all must pass-- the most chronic and seemingly pathological liars are children. They will lie when they don't have to, or for the fun of it, or in order to get something they covet, or to cover their tracks. From this we can learn that there is something immature about the impulse to lie, and that there is something about honesty that is learned. Or, perhaps, earned.
Honesty in its original usage meant to speak honorably. The honorable person is one who readily accepts the consequences of his actions, whether they are desirable or problematic, he does not shirk the outcome.
Why this investigation of honor and honesty here? Because as service providers, we are all playing a confidence game- that is, we are gaining the confidence of potential clients in order to sell them our services. Our product is intangible- confidence and service. The same as the 'con man'. We walk in a gray zone where the customer buys because he has placed his confidence in us. And of course what separates the professional service provider from the 'con man' is that he provides what he has promised for a fee disclosed at the beginning of the relationship.
This places some providers in a position to think that because they have gained the client's confidence, they can sell them anything, or shoddy service. The lawyer who claims to have taken action on a cause when he hasn't, the physician who prescribes a procedure that is not necessary, the financial adviser who churns the account, etc.
Most notable about issues with honesty in professional practice is that there is no surer way to terminate a career prematurely than by practicing in a less than honorable way.
In honorable practice, there is no trace left behind one's actions, nothing that can be used against the provider after the fact. While those who commit wrongdoing have left at the scene a weapon that can and will be used against them when the time comes, and they will have to face, dishonorably, the consequences of their actions.
Thursday, August 13, 2009
The Daily Practice of Business Development
Every piece of news I see from the world of law practice seems to be bad news-- no one needs to be reminded of this. It can be discouraging, and create a sense of hopelessness. There is no denying these natural human reactions to an avalanche of bad news. Despair can lead to paralysis, depression, and increased reliance on artificial methods of feeling good.
Lawyers are workhorses, and nothing satisfies them as much as a good day's work. A good day's work is a great defense against the fear that lays in wait for every professional service provider, self employed or working in a firm. But, face it, everyone is self-employed nowadays, no matter how big the firm.
So, what work is to be done when there seems to be none to do? Whoever guessed 'business development' gets the gold star. There can be no better time than the present to devote oneself to the job of increasing your business network. It still surprises me to see how few lawyers are regularly involved in practice development. It is crucial to remember that law practice depends entirely on relationships, and the time and attention you give to building them pays off directly in the amount of work you do.
In this period of slack, you can put in your day's work enhancing and building your business relationships, reviewing your existing clients needs, and studying how service delivery to those clients can be expanded. It's not nuclear physics- going from doing nothing to doing something will yield big rewards over time.
I feel that far too often, professionals in service industry think too big when considering how to get started with business development. Remember, we are talking BD, not marketing. Marketing has to do with creating an image, sending out a signal to the world that conveys that image, draws attention to the image and creates interest in that image. However, the image and the interest it creates is useless unless the marketplace (potential clients) is able to connect a person with that image- potential clients want a name and a face.
And that is where business development begins- putting your name and face with the 'brand'. It is not necessary to think in terms of making yourself a 'rainmaker' overnight, or ever. It is necessary, though, to understand who your clients are, and who referred them. It is necessary to pick up the phone and call those people, or email and follow up with a phone call. It is important that you inform those clients of your latest research in areas of importance to them. It is important that you ask those people to help you locate others whom you HAVE NOT MET so you can arrange meetings with them. It is important that you do this regularly, day in and day out, week in and week out, monthly, yearly.
When committed to as a daily practice, you will soon begin to see a direct connection between those activities and the amount and kind of business you are doing. The mere fact of making commitment, and setting your mind to the task itself seems to send a message out to the universe that you are now ready to work, and sure enough the work starts to show up.
Lawyers are workhorses, and nothing satisfies them as much as a good day's work. A good day's work is a great defense against the fear that lays in wait for every professional service provider, self employed or working in a firm. But, face it, everyone is self-employed nowadays, no matter how big the firm.
So, what work is to be done when there seems to be none to do? Whoever guessed 'business development' gets the gold star. There can be no better time than the present to devote oneself to the job of increasing your business network. It still surprises me to see how few lawyers are regularly involved in practice development. It is crucial to remember that law practice depends entirely on relationships, and the time and attention you give to building them pays off directly in the amount of work you do.
In this period of slack, you can put in your day's work enhancing and building your business relationships, reviewing your existing clients needs, and studying how service delivery to those clients can be expanded. It's not nuclear physics- going from doing nothing to doing something will yield big rewards over time.
I feel that far too often, professionals in service industry think too big when considering how to get started with business development. Remember, we are talking BD, not marketing. Marketing has to do with creating an image, sending out a signal to the world that conveys that image, draws attention to the image and creates interest in that image. However, the image and the interest it creates is useless unless the marketplace (potential clients) is able to connect a person with that image- potential clients want a name and a face.
And that is where business development begins- putting your name and face with the 'brand'. It is not necessary to think in terms of making yourself a 'rainmaker' overnight, or ever. It is necessary, though, to understand who your clients are, and who referred them. It is necessary to pick up the phone and call those people, or email and follow up with a phone call. It is important that you inform those clients of your latest research in areas of importance to them. It is important that you ask those people to help you locate others whom you HAVE NOT MET so you can arrange meetings with them. It is important that you do this regularly, day in and day out, week in and week out, monthly, yearly.
When committed to as a daily practice, you will soon begin to see a direct connection between those activities and the amount and kind of business you are doing. The mere fact of making commitment, and setting your mind to the task itself seems to send a message out to the universe that you are now ready to work, and sure enough the work starts to show up.
Sunday, July 19, 2009
How to Select a Coach, and Just What Does a Coach Do, Anyway?
Sherman Chavoor, the legendary coach who developed Mark Spitz throughout childhood and was his trusted advisor at the 1972 Olympic games, could not swim a stroke. And yet, he brought Spitz to the absolute pinnacle of the sport.
I tell this story because I am a coach to people in a variety of professional endeavours that I have never personally been involved in. It helps that I've been a psychotherapist to lawyers for years, and have thus developed a deep understanding of the insecurities and burdens that pertain to the profession. It helps that I've worked around physicians in a variety of settings for many years, but I've never practiced law or medicine, or been an architect or a traditional business consultant.
Far more important than having 'been there, done that' is the formation of a trusitng relationship. The coach sets the tone for the relationship, but is careful to not impose his own goals or needs on his client. His job within that trusting relationship is to understand what the client is capable of, whether the client fully grasps this or not.
Example: On the night before the 100 meter freestyle final against a field that included a fierce challenger named Jerry Heidenreich, Spitz was so frightened he could not rest, and called Chavoor to say he didn't think he could do it, and wanted to drop out. Chavoor wouldn't hear of it, and we know the rest. Of note is the fact that had Chavoor not been there, Mark would probably have dropped the race from his program.
Also, had Spitz not seen Chavoor as someone he could trust, then he would never have called him.
It is that element of trust and engagement that the good coach brings to the relationship.
It is interesting to me that so often, I meet professionals who have already worked with a 'coach' and have become disenchanted. Why? Because, I have discovered, the coach failed to develop precisely the sense of trust in the client that they were ostensibly trying to help the client develop with HIS clients. How often I've heard of practice coaches being disingenuous, unavailable, unengaged.
The good coach 'engages'---a quick check reveals that to 'engage' is to be 'under pledge'....that is, I pledge to you that you will have my full attention and that when you reach out, I will be there for you. And this is backed up in behavior with quickly returned phone calls, meetings held regularly and on time, and the hard to define sense that as a client, it is clear to you that you and your work are important to the coach...
That is all for now, but will be back soon with a continuation of the series on business development....
I tell this story because I am a coach to people in a variety of professional endeavours that I have never personally been involved in. It helps that I've been a psychotherapist to lawyers for years, and have thus developed a deep understanding of the insecurities and burdens that pertain to the profession. It helps that I've worked around physicians in a variety of settings for many years, but I've never practiced law or medicine, or been an architect or a traditional business consultant.
Far more important than having 'been there, done that' is the formation of a trusitng relationship. The coach sets the tone for the relationship, but is careful to not impose his own goals or needs on his client. His job within that trusting relationship is to understand what the client is capable of, whether the client fully grasps this or not.
Example: On the night before the 100 meter freestyle final against a field that included a fierce challenger named Jerry Heidenreich, Spitz was so frightened he could not rest, and called Chavoor to say he didn't think he could do it, and wanted to drop out. Chavoor wouldn't hear of it, and we know the rest. Of note is the fact that had Chavoor not been there, Mark would probably have dropped the race from his program.
Also, had Spitz not seen Chavoor as someone he could trust, then he would never have called him.
It is that element of trust and engagement that the good coach brings to the relationship.
It is interesting to me that so often, I meet professionals who have already worked with a 'coach' and have become disenchanted. Why? Because, I have discovered, the coach failed to develop precisely the sense of trust in the client that they were ostensibly trying to help the client develop with HIS clients. How often I've heard of practice coaches being disingenuous, unavailable, unengaged.
The good coach 'engages'---a quick check reveals that to 'engage' is to be 'under pledge'....that is, I pledge to you that you will have my full attention and that when you reach out, I will be there for you. And this is backed up in behavior with quickly returned phone calls, meetings held regularly and on time, and the hard to define sense that as a client, it is clear to you that you and your work are important to the coach...
That is all for now, but will be back soon with a continuation of the series on business development....
Friday, July 10, 2009
Further Developments in Business Development
when we left off in june, we were discussing business development, and i plan to continue here today.
the last topic touched on had to do with how to react after you have done the following: 1-scheduled a meeting with a prospect 2-gathered information on what services that person needs 3-showed her how you could provide that and 4) asked for the assignment
we all know what to do next if the prospective client says 'yes': say 'thank you for the assignment, it will be an honor to help you with that' and then get proactive.
but what to do if the answer is 'no'?
a recent very popular book 'the four agreements' by miguel ruiz speaks to this in agreement #2. Don't Take Anything Personally--Nothing others do is because of you. What others say and do is a projection of their own reality, their own dream. When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won't be the victim of needless suffering.
i interpret this in the following manner. of course, you will take the rejection personally. it is unavoidable. that is the primordial emotion. but we must educate ourselves past that with ruiz' important observation about the true nature of the interpersonal universe. i will go on to say that this interpersonal universe is a mysterious place that knows no centers. by that i mean, it is only my deeply flawed illusion that tells me i am the center of this world.
how does this guide the lawyer or service professional who has gotten over all his misgivings about 'sales' and taken it upon himself to make his own good fortune? it means that she will take note of the fact that she got as far as the meeting, and gained valuable information not only about the prospect's business but also about their competitor's businesses (i.e. potential clients), and she will go back and further research the company and industry for legislative changes that will impact them. she will then contact that person regularly with the results of this research and will continue to speak to and interact with this person for the foreseeable future...
more later
the last topic touched on had to do with how to react after you have done the following: 1-scheduled a meeting with a prospect 2-gathered information on what services that person needs 3-showed her how you could provide that and 4) asked for the assignment
we all know what to do next if the prospective client says 'yes': say 'thank you for the assignment, it will be an honor to help you with that' and then get proactive.
but what to do if the answer is 'no'?
a recent very popular book 'the four agreements' by miguel ruiz speaks to this in agreement #2. Don't Take Anything Personally--Nothing others do is because of you. What others say and do is a projection of their own reality, their own dream. When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won't be the victim of needless suffering.
i interpret this in the following manner. of course, you will take the rejection personally. it is unavoidable. that is the primordial emotion. but we must educate ourselves past that with ruiz' important observation about the true nature of the interpersonal universe. i will go on to say that this interpersonal universe is a mysterious place that knows no centers. by that i mean, it is only my deeply flawed illusion that tells me i am the center of this world.
how does this guide the lawyer or service professional who has gotten over all his misgivings about 'sales' and taken it upon himself to make his own good fortune? it means that she will take note of the fact that she got as far as the meeting, and gained valuable information not only about the prospect's business but also about their competitor's businesses (i.e. potential clients), and she will go back and further research the company and industry for legislative changes that will impact them. she will then contact that person regularly with the results of this research and will continue to speak to and interact with this person for the foreseeable future...
more later
Friday, June 26, 2009
We Were Talking About Business Development
But were interrupted by vacation.
So, you've made your list of existing business, made appointments to get together with those who are inactive, have done research on their companies and latest developments in their industries, have sat down and made direct, personal contact with them, informed them of what you've been learning about upcoming changes and potential legal exposures.
What now? Now comes one of the most important parts of these interactions. You must do what many would avoid doing- you must make yourself vulnerable by ASKING FOR THE BUSINESS. "I would like to help you with that" "I believe I can help you with that" "It would be a pleasure to assist you with that" "That sounds like something I could help you with, if you will give me that assignment"
I suspect it is this part that many would avoid, because you are jumping off into the interpersonal void-- that area that exists between yourself and anyone else, where you have no control whatever, the 'ball' has left your racket and is now sailing over the 'net' into the other's 'court'...
keeping the analogy going, if you've hit the ball well, the odds are good that it will come back softly in the middle of your side, and you'll get your racket on it. but there is always that unpredictable, unknown element in human relations. if you've positioned yourself with knowledge, quiet confidence, good, attentive listening, then you will have an assignment.
but, if the other side is in an unspoken budget crunch or constrained by some element that keeps him or her from giving the assignment, and all you get is 'We'll see...' or 'Thanks, but no thanks'.
the great tendency among us (humans) is to assume that this reply has something to do with ourselves, with 'me'...
So, you've made your list of existing business, made appointments to get together with those who are inactive, have done research on their companies and latest developments in their industries, have sat down and made direct, personal contact with them, informed them of what you've been learning about upcoming changes and potential legal exposures.
What now? Now comes one of the most important parts of these interactions. You must do what many would avoid doing- you must make yourself vulnerable by ASKING FOR THE BUSINESS. "I would like to help you with that" "I believe I can help you with that" "It would be a pleasure to assist you with that" "That sounds like something I could help you with, if you will give me that assignment"
I suspect it is this part that many would avoid, because you are jumping off into the interpersonal void-- that area that exists between yourself and anyone else, where you have no control whatever, the 'ball' has left your racket and is now sailing over the 'net' into the other's 'court'...
keeping the analogy going, if you've hit the ball well, the odds are good that it will come back softly in the middle of your side, and you'll get your racket on it. but there is always that unpredictable, unknown element in human relations. if you've positioned yourself with knowledge, quiet confidence, good, attentive listening, then you will have an assignment.
but, if the other side is in an unspoken budget crunch or constrained by some element that keeps him or her from giving the assignment, and all you get is 'We'll see...' or 'Thanks, but no thanks'.
the great tendency among us (humans) is to assume that this reply has something to do with ourselves, with 'me'...
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