In episode 85 of How To Matter, I share what happened on the way to this podcast. My plan was to focus on negotiating with players from The Frustration Factor but I was abruptly diverted. Have you ever been totally intimidated? Well, I was having a little episode of that myself today. In the podcast, I share what happened and clue you in on the outcome. Negotiations is rescheduled for the next episode of How To Matter. By then, I should be well back on track.

In episode 84 of How To Matter, I don't offer what is generally passed out as solid advice. The article below serves as the handout for the episode and lets you know what the expected advice is. These days, that quite simply does not work. In the podcast, I explain why.

Do you recall those long gone days when taking turns was a serious priority, when small children were taught, coached, and cajoled with the edict, “We take turns?” This core social principle applied most everywhere and with most activities. Good children were polite, had good manners, and, of course, took turns.

The taking turns rule applied nowhere more than when interacting verbally with others. Teachers, parents, and adults more generally told us interrupting was rude and listening to more than one person at a time was not possible or was at least not something they could do.

The taking turns rule served us well until the advent of asynchronous communication. It has been around forever but when it showed up in the telephone, the simple orderliness of taking turns was doomed. At first, either you could talk or I could talk but quickly telephone technology allowed both of us to talk at the same time. It has been all down hill from there.

I blame it on the telephone since the alternative is to attribute our propensity for asynchronous communication to a major uptick in rudeness and bad manners. Whatever the cause, concurrent asynchronous communication (CAC) has become much more the norm than the exception. I don’t have any prevalence data but am sure it is so common we hardly notice. It usually doesn’t go so far as everyone talking at once but it comes close. Let me offer a tad more explanation.

Suppose three people are having a conversation. Tom talks while Dick and Mary listen attentively until Tom stops talking. Dick or Mary then talks (takes a turn). Dick and Mary may start talking at the same time; but if so, there are immediate, awkward “I’m sorries” and “Go aheads” and “No you firsts.” The awkwardness resolves with little delay and Dick or Mary assumes the talker position and the process repeats.

In this conversation, talking skills are important but listening skills are more important. Listening is so important communication experts write books and offer workshops to help improve listening skills. If you take time to consider what the experts say, you quickly learn they mostly say we should become better and more efficient listeners.

Becoming a better listener is a reasonable goal; but here is the problem. People don’t take turns talking these days. Mostly they talk asynchronously. They try finishing each others sentences, too impatient to let the person finish. The sentence finisher then becomes the talker, assuming the original talker acquiesces.

They talk over each other. Person “2” starts talking while person “1” is still talking. Either person “1” gives in or person “2” backs off. Either way, neither has much of a clue what the other said while they were both talking. It is a contest repeated over and over during their “conversation;” but neither seems to notice the competition.

There are many versions of CAC but let me toss out one more to suffice for now. “A” is talking and pauses to take a breath or to consider exactly what to say. “B” takes this small break in the flow to capture the talker position. Again, there is a tiny contest. Will “A” passively relinquish the talker position or talk over “B” to re-assume the position? There is no rule of thumb. It likely depends on whether “A” has enough energy or interest to pursue the contest.

We could bemoan the emergence of CAC and complain about how common it has become but it would still be more the norm than the exception. Better is to accept it and develop the skills needed to effectively participate in day to day conversations. The challenge is learning the new skills CAC requires since simply being a good listener and taking turns won’t cut it.

In episode 83 of How To Matter, focus is on The Frustration Factor: How to manage people who drive you up the wall. Specifically, I share a compressed version of the explanation of Bummed-Out players. These players are especially frustrating and apt to pull us into their game. If you want the full story on Bummed-Out players, you can download the full edition of The Frustration Factor. This free book covers all the main versions of the Frustration Factor and the players who drive us up the wall. The podcast gives you a quick head start on developing the skills you need to handle the players from The Frustration Factor.

In episode 82 of How To Matter, our good friend Simon has some advice for us. We would not have expected any less. This time he is focused on being sure we get our success work done. The article below serves as the handout for the episode. In the podcast, I take us to the conclusion that the priority for us is to always make sure we get today's work done today.

Simon says, Your success depends on what you can do, not on what you cannot do.

What you cannot do may be on your list of things you want to be able to do one day; but your services line is limited to what you can already do today. You may be a good singer, a serious student of eighteenth century philosophy, a skilled whittler, an expert on baseball statistics, a competent poker player, and still not be a link in the success chains of others. What you can do does not materially add to their success and thus, does not affect yours.

You cannot and should not spend every waking moment succeeding. You need other ways to express yourself and to get away from the success game. If you do not have other interests, the absence of fullness and richness in your life sooner or later lead to your being obsessed with success. Should that happen, certain failure is just around the corner. No one can pull the success wagon 24-hours a day forever.

Do what you can do today to succeed. The danger is likely not in becoming obsessed with success. It is in letting days and weeks pass without doing your success work, without expanding and enhancing your internal resources, without focusing on improving your services line, without marketing your services to the world. Sometimes it is not easy to identify success work you can do right now; but,

•There is always something you can do.

•You always have success options and opportunities.

The critical question is not whether there is success work available to you. It is, What am I doing right now to succeed? If you ask yourself this question once a day, every day, and if the answer is, Whatever I can do right now to succeed, your success is inevitable.

In episode 81 of How To Matter, I stray from only offering one tip you can consider as you make a difference with people who make a difference to you. The article below serves as the handout for the episode. It's all about crying over spilled milk. You soon get the idea just before I put the old dog in the truck and call it a day.

The toothpaste won't go back into the tube.

I learned this important fact when I was about 6. I don't remember how I managed to get the toothpaste out of the tube and all over me, the bathroom, and my new shirt. But I sure do remember there was no way to get it back into the tube before my mother asked the question all mothers ask. “What in the world do you think you are doing?” Since even at 6 I knew that telling her I was putting the toothpaste back into the tube was not going to cut it, I used every child's standby reply, “Nothing!”

I have since come to understand the toothpaste principle applies to more than toothpaste. It also applies to harsh words, ill considered actions, bad decisions, and a lot of other opportunities that come and go, not to return. There are those times when we only get one chance to do it right. When we do it wrong with our families, friends, neighbors, and people at work, we can't take it back. The best we can do is to try not to have too many things we wish we could take back or undo.

Almost anything is easier to get into than out of.

This is the deep water principle. Here is what happened.

I was 14 and at the stage where I was very interested in girls but not sure what to do about it. A couple of my buddies and I were at the beach and decided impressing 3 nearby young ladies would be our best approach. After a bit of adolescent posturing, we started swimming toward a floating platform 200 or so yards out. About halfway to our goal, the lifeguard swam up to me and told me I could not swim well enough to go farther. To add insult to injured pride, she swam beside me all the way back to the beach where the girls were very amused but not at all impressed.

This was very heavy stuff at 14. Mostly, it was embarrassing if not down right humiliating. The main thing I learned was it is not a good idea to get in over my head whether the goal is to swim farther than I can or to impress girls or anyone else for that matter. If for no other reason, there isn't always a lifeguard to rescue me and I can no longer use being 14 as an excuse.

Since the day at the beach, I have learned that the deep water principle applies to more than swimming and girls. It also applies to things like going into debt, conflicts with people at home and work, bad habits and all those times when the little voice inside tries to warn me but I casually ignore it and dive in anyway.

The best shells are gone by 6:30.

Lest you think the only good stuff I've learned is about what not to do and being cautious, you also need to know about the sea shell principle. I was 32 by the time I learned this important truth.

I was visiting my grandfather in Florida and mostly enjoying the winter sunshine and good company. Grandpa showed me an exceptionally fine sea shell he found on the beach.

I said, “That was a bit of good luck, your finding that shell.” He smiled and replied, “Yes, it was good luck for a guy who was already on the beach and looking before 6:30. All the good shells are gone by then.”

This was an important lesson. Luck plays a big part in a lot of things. Luck has a role in whether our marriages work out, whether our children do well, whether we succeed with our jobs, and in almost every other aspect of our lives. Stuff happens and we cannot control everything.

At the same time, we can improve the odds. We can work on our marriages, look for opportunities to encourage and support our children and be alert for those chances to improve our situation. We can be on the beach before 6:30 and we can make the effort to succeed. We cannot control everything but can control a lot of what happens in o...

In episode 80 of How To Matter, I discuss a little quirk of human nature. When experiencing new people, new situations, new circumstances, we focus first on the new, the different, the unusual. The problem is that we also tend to get stuck on those aspects and fail to incorporate the known, the expected, the familiar. The result is that we can remain with a particular prejudice, a limited and perhaps incorrect sense of the situation or person. In the podcast, I suggest focusing first on the familiar. This lets us gain a more accurate perspective, a more humanized sense of other people. The article below serves as the handout for the discussion.

Wherever we go, across the Pacific or Atlantic, we meet, not similarity so much as 'the bizarre'. Things astonish us, when we travel, that surprise nobody else. -- Miriam Beard

Whether venturing out to cross an ocean or merely considering what's already at hand, you are frequently astonished. You see the different, the bizarre, the unusual, the pieces that don't quite fit. You also see the similarities and common aspects. Many people tend to see most events and situations as new or unique. You attend to what you haven't seen before, what you don't understand, those elements that are atypical or unusual. However, you first see the extent to which each event or circumstance fits into a familiar pattern, into the context of prior experience. Whether the fit is slight or more pronounced, the points of congruence with available knowledge and information are your initial reference for thought, perception, and intuition. You move on from there but first use the connection between the past and present to prime the pump, so to speak.

In Episode 79 of How To Matter, the discussion focuses on success and on discovering the key to success. We hear from our old friend Simon, who always has guidance for us. Simon says, Resources are internal; opportunities are external. This leads to better understanding success chaining and how important it is to be sure you are not the missing link.

In episode 78 of How To Matter, I look into experts and offer three rules for working with experts in any field. The article below serves as the handout for the episode. I come to the conclusion that from time to time, enough is way too much, particularly since not all experts are equally expert. Now and then, it is time to fire the expert and move on.

The incompetent with nothing to do can still make a mess of it. -- Laurence J. Peter

Don't try to do jobs you don't know how to do. This does not mean that you don't try new things or attempt tasks you haven't done before. You are interested in extending your knowledge and skills whenever the opportunity comes along. Rather, it means that you don't try to do things you have no reasonable knowledge of or familiarity with. You stay within your known capacity and expertise. If you are going outside of your personal and professional limits, you associate with an expert in the new area. You can learn, can be trained, but don't act as if you are when you aren't.

In episode 77 of How To Matter, I wonder if success and failure are real or perhaps mostly mind games we play with ourselves. The article below serves as the handout for the discussion. My conclusion is that we mostly impose the notions of success and failure on ourselves and on our achievements and shortcomings.

A man may fall many times, but he won't be a failure until he says that someone pushed him. -- Elmer G. Letterman

The psychology of success and failure is complex but not particularly hard to understand. It starts with personal responsibility. Unless you accept the responsibility for failure, you can't take the credit for success. Either you are the agent of your life outcomes or the victim of people who are pushing you down. What Letterman didn't say is that, if you blame others for pushing you down, people other than you deserve the praise for pushing you ahead.

Separating yourself from what you do comes next. As William D. Brown put it, Failure is an event, never a person. Your success and failure aren't who you are. They are merely what you do. S.I. Hayakawa expanded on the same theme, Notice the difference between what happens when a man says to himself, ‘I have failed three times,' and what happens when he says, ‘I am a failure.' The key is in how you manage life's events, not in the events themselves. Robert Allen expressed it like this, There is no failure. Only feedback.

Now consider what you do with the feedback life provides. Napoleon Hill observed, The majority of men meet with failure because of their lack of persistence in creating new plans to take the place of those which fail. It's not enough to pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and climb back on that horse that threw you. You need a better plan for staying in the saddle. Sure, getting up and starting over is tough. Yes, that damn horse may throw you again. Indeed, your new plan may not work any better than the old one; but it's like Beverly Sills said, You may be disappointed if you fail, but you are doomed if you don't try.

Thomas Edison managed the disappointment this way, I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work; and Samuel Beckett had a similar persistent optimism, Try again. Fail again. Fail better. With role models like Edison and Beckett, you can hardly go wrong, so long as you keep trying. As Charles F. Kettering put it, One fails forward toward success.

George E. Woodberry knew the essence of success, Defeat is not the worst of failures. Not to have tried is the true failure. Continuing effort is seldom elegant or easy; but Elbert Hubbard's simple point may be all you actually need to know, There is no failure except in no longer trying. With that said, Mary Pickford gets the last word on the psychology of success and failure, Supposing you have tried and failed again and again. You may have a fresh start any moment you choose, for this thing we call ‘failure' is not the falling down, but the staying down.

In episode 76 of How To Matter, I expand the discussion of good stress, bad stress and bad bad stress to focus on an example of someone experiencing bad bad stress and eight signs of stress problems. The article below serves as the handout for the episode.

Kim felt restless and could not get herself to calm down. She tried to listen but could not concentrate on what her mother was saying to her. She was feeling the start of a headache. The past few nights, she had tossed and turned for an hour or two before falling asleep. Last night, she woke up several times and it seemed to take forever for her to go back to sleep. Waking up was not so bad; but the bad dreams upset her and kept her from going back to sleep. She could not get them off her mind.

Between her headache and feeling tired, there was no way she could pay attention to her mother. Calm down, Kim told herself. I think I'm going to be sick. She thought her nausea was because of something she ate but the more upset she got, the worse it got. Don't start crying again. I've got to get out of here, she screamed to herself as she turned and ran out of the room.

Signs Of Stress: Restlessness and trouble calming down; Trouble concentrating and paying attention; Problems going to sleep (may wake up during the night); Bad dreams (may have nightmares); Headaches; An upset stomach; Crying easily (may have crying spells); Losing your temper easily and quickly.