Alan Weiss's The Uncomfortable Truth®

SHOW NOTES:

•Do you know people who are loquacious, verbose, prolix?

•Ask a "yes or no" question and they respond with opinions, history, and self-therapy.

•Have you been to the Jersey Shore?

Well, I did go once, as a child, but my parents really couldn't afford the vacation, and then when they could, they preferred Cape Cod. I haven't taken my children because my spouse thinks that "Jaws" was a documentary.

•Why so much talk?

-Articulating cognitive processes

-Buying time

-Believing it adds credibility and esteem

-Just a bigmouth who loves to hear him/herself talk

•Tell people what they need to know, not everything that you know.

•Assume intelligent people will ask you questions if needed.

•Don't be afraid to stop people from rambling:

-What's your point?

-What's your question?

•Verbosity attempts to hide the point: politicians do it and it probably helped cost Kamala Harris the election.

•It dilutes your real power, like planting the Mona Lisa in the midst of a much larger painting.

•People forget the major points because they are drowned in minor points. She talked at length about needing ice cream, but I don't remember what flavors she said to avoid at all costs.

•Lincoln's Gettysburg Address took about 2.5 minutes to deliver. Can you recall who else spoke that day for hours?

•The US Constitution is a couple of pages. The rules of golf are over 600. Is it really easier to run the most successful and powerful democracy in history than to hit a ball with a stick?

SHOW NOTES:

People want problems solved, even if you caused them!

Learn how Katz's Deli and Mercedes Benz have turned problems into profits.

Don't look for blame, look for opportunity.

No one is as excited about an expected excellent experience as they are about a disappointing experience turned into an excellent experience.

Customers tend to tell a huge number of people about their experiences, at their levels—peer-to-peer evangelism.

This is why companies that make it their work to make themselves unreachable (welcome to government agencies) are so foolish.

Perhaps, instead of saying, "The problem with you is...." you should be saying, "Let me help you do that even better."

SHOW NOTES:

There are myriad claims on social media that are justified by the author observing (or being a self-proclaimed expert in) "body language." I have always thought this was ridiculous, sort of a faux psychological claim of expertise. Of course, the French have long studied graphology (handwriting) to determine behavioral traits (hard in a world forsaking cursive), and scapulimancy, the study of old, burned animal shoulder bones, has been used by various cultures to contact the gods.

"Body language" is a similar myth. You don't believe me, here's what Psychology Today has to say about it:

"Every day, we get queries from around the world about non-verbals and invariably about detecting deception through body language. The biggest takeaway from the hundreds of messages is that despite the undeniable importance of nonverbal communication, many myths and false beliefs undermine its importance, relevance, or utility. So, we decided to pool our resources and comment on ten myths about body language that are currently trending, and you may notice some have been trending for a long time."

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/spycatcher/202207/debunking-body-language-myths

But why trust me or science? After all, who knows what my body language looks like right now?

SHOW NOTES:

•Let's stop the hypocrisy around this affair.

•This goes on all over, government, business, education.

•I've seen it, many people know the "secret."

•The foolishness is the arrogance that you think it's a secret.

•But the attempts at shadenfreude are ludicrous.

•Who's pointing the finger? People who have cheated on exams, broken traffic laws, evaded taxes, blamed others for their corrupt behavior, lied on applications, snuck into events, bragged about things that never happened, and covered up things that did.

•People reveling in the pain of two people who now have broken marriages and broken homes.

•A man died a week ago with whose politics a woman on Facebook disagreed and said his death "made the word a better place."

•What kind of sick behavior is that? It's low self-esteem.

•We've all done things we're not proud of, and some of us are remorseful. That's what the confessional is for, or Yom Kippur, or your therapist, or a serious, soul-searching hike up a mountain.

•If others learning of a transgression were able to learn from it, okay. But to use it sanctimoniously, to mount the high horse and seek the higher moral ground? That's just juvenile.

•It was their fault (my disrespect is for the guy who is now suing Cold Play as if they did something wrong. They warned about the cameras and no one has the right to expect privacy at a public event).

•My advice is to heed Jesus about those without sin casting the first stone. But of course we're supposed to value secularism today, not religion, not the admonishment to treat others as you'd like them to treat you.

•Better pack a first aid kit, though, because that high horse can give you quite a nose bleed.

SHOW NOTES:

•Why is Scottie Sheffler likely to become the greatest golfer ever?

•Why is mental attitude the key to winning?

•How some sports prompt more honesty than others.

•Handling defeat and victory properly.

•Not allowing a mistake to become a haunting obstacle.

•Why Tiger Woods was overrated.

•Even if you don't play the game you can learn from it.

•Playing prudently to win.

•Never "coming back to the pack."

•Sheffler and Koufax and Sinatra.

SHOW NOTES:

We strongly suggest you view the video of this conversation using this link: https://alanweiss.com/mercedes-and-anastasia/

Mercedes and Anastasia Korngut are two teen sisters, and co-founders of the company, Small Bits of Happiness. Their mission is to help individuals of all ages find more happiness in daily life. They have reached over four million teens and adults. As two teens, Mercedes and Anastasia understand firsthand the difficulties of teenage-hood, including not only the hormonal changes that tweens and teens undergo, but the added stressors of war, post-pandemic life, and beyond. The two have been featured on national news and media, spoken at schools and conventions across North America, host the podcast Hack Your Happiness, as well have designed a series of happiness-wellness products for tweens, teens, adults, and schools.

SHOW NOTES:

One of the most corrupted words in the language recently is "unicorn," which is a mythical creature. "Mythical" means "not real."

Yet all kinds of people have decided they are unicorns and, therefore, are unique, better than others, more valuable.

Yet if so many people are appropriating the title, then are they really "unique"?

Outstanding performers may be rare—in sports, business, entertainment, whatever—but they are not mythical, and they don't see themselves as mysterious creatures. In fact, highly successful people can tell you why they're successful. It's the unsuccessful people who insist they're somehow "unicorns."

You know, narwhals also have single tusks sticking out of their heads. Or, mythically, you could call yourself a Sasquatch, or Yeti, or Loch Ness Monster. Or the Easter Bunny or the Tooth Fairy.

But enough with "unicorn." They are now a herd and none are differentiated.

SHOW NOTES:

•We should avoid generations stereotyping.

•We're really better off than we're led to believe.

•Try living in Denmark or Iceland.

•Magic bullets won't help.

•Can a culture survive on gambling?

•There is extreme unhappiness in the land.

•It is exacerbated by the internet.

•People would rather blame themselves, the boss, or the system rather than accept accountability.

•Conspiracies and claims of catastrophes abound.

•Self-absorption has become a pastime.

•Selfishness has grown to not even wanting to have kids.

•What I learned growing up having to challenges without safe havens and trigger warnings.

•What I told my son.

SHOW NOTES:

Here's just a part of the obituary of my friend and former subordinate, Francis X. McGuire from 2010:

"...a unique man whose professional life began as a late night disc-jockey in New York City, led him to serve in the Kennedy White House, work for the ABC network (hiring Ted Koppel), to be on the ground floor side-by-side with Fred Smith during the Fed Ex start-up, and there with Colonel Sanders when he sold."

In the mid- to late 70s he wound up working for me at a firm in Princeton, and even I didn't know what he was doing there, and our owner kept trying to fire him in cost-cutting fits, emerging from his office shouting, "Fire McGuire!" I forestalled that with quick thinking and fake assignments.

I'm thinking of him now, because Fred Smith, with whom Frank was quite close, just passed away, which is notable because Smith is one of the greatest business leaders of my entire lifetime, in my assessment.

So here's to Frank, whom I'm hoping Fred Smith is meeting again, because only God can tell what Frank is supposed to be doing.

SHOW NOTES:

Fight, Flight, Fright, or Fall Down Quaking

We feel powerless in an age of volatility and disruption, of lack of trust in our institutions, and of polarization among those supposed to represent our best interests and not merely their own.

Fight or flight has added fright to the equation, but it seems to me there's also the new option of hiding under the bed (fall down quaking). Whining has become a national past time, and we hear of "toxic bosses, poisonous workplaces, unfair demands, too little pay for too much work. And the anodyne solutions is "soak the rich, tax the wealthy, take back....well, whatever."

Those experiments in Seattle and Portland, which were actually anarchic takeovers and the end of law and order didn't work out so well, did they? The Great City of San Francisco, where we lived for a glorious while in the 70s is not filthy and dangerous in many areas. The homeless often physically confront pedestrians.

At least we don't hear "defund the police" so much anymore, since it's such a stupid concept. The homeless, the mentally ill, deserve and require empathy beyond a police response. But when the bad guys are trying to break the law, trying to steal, trying to create chaos, we need more police not fewer.

In the long run this is about perceived powerlessness. We've lost faith and thereby feel alienated, which causes us to "drop out" (not vote) and the results are the greater influence of those with whom we don't agree, creating a greater sense of powerlessness and a "doom loop" exsistence.

There are a lot of positive things going on in the country, and other things that well-meaning people would like to change. Fair enough, but that takes will power and relative fearlessness, not some kind of hibernation.

At least we've stopped taking the names of the Founding Fathers, Lincoln and others off of public buildings. We're more concerned about gender and bathrooms today than we are with public welfare, quality education, and decency.

Fortunately, the system is brilliant and survived, made to endure even when run by idiots from either party.