Know Your ABCs

Experts claim that the most successful people aren’t necessarily the most intelligent or best educated; they’re the most emotionally resilient.

They don’t let negative emotions cloud their judgment.  Instead, they acknowledge such feelings as being inevitable and take responsibility for their actions.  A core habit of resilient people is their ability to manage the ABC loop.  

A = Antecedent is the stimulus that drives an emotional response to a behavior.

B = Behavior is the behavior you choose to exhibit as a result of an emotional response.

C = Consequence is the results you have to accept for your actions.

For example, you get into a barroom brawl because someone insulted you, you hit them and end up in jail for a night.  The Antecedent is the person insulting you which makes you angry.  The Behavior is you taking the first swing.  The Consequence is a night in jail (unless you are married or have to tell your mother and then the consequences at home could be worse).

Emotionally resilient people focus on controlling the space between the Antecedent and the emotion so they can CHOOSE their behavior instead of just react.  You get insulted.  Instead of clenching your fist in anger, take a breath and relax your body.  This lets you change part of the antecedent, and lets you more actively manage events to a consequence you prefer.

“It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the ones most resilient and responsive to change.” – Charles Darwin

“I am not what happened to me, I am what I choose to become.” – Carl Gustav Jung

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Gobble, Gobble - or, Lessons From the Thanksgiving Table.

Turkey Day is upon us!  Yet another year of annoying family members and eating too much.  While work is the furthest thing on most peoples’ minds during the holiday, there are some good lessons to be learned from a well-executed Thanksgiving Day dinner beyond “it suck to be the turkey!”

1. Plan well – “A failure to plan, is a plan to fail.”  All sorts of problems come up when reality meets the road.  Aunt Bessie gets stuck in traffic behind a bad accident.  Little Joey has an “accident” in his pants.  Spot jumps on the kitchen counter and starts nibbling on the turkey.  Unanticipated bumps in the road, emergency fires to put out, others that demand your attention, etc.  If it’s important, take a little time to plan how to succeed in advance so the nuisances don’t become major problems.

2. Keep things in perspective – Putting that much family into a small space (and then adding football rivalries and a bit of alcohol) can lead to a family squabble or two.  Sometimes just reminding people of why we are here – to be with family, have a good time, and that we care about each other - goes a long way to defusing those arguments.  Part of good behavior and communication can be as simple as a reminder of what the bigger picture is.

3. Show gratitude – Thanksgiving is about, well, giving thanks.  For what you have.  For the relationships in your life. Showing gratitude and appreciation is one of the best ways to let people know you care and keep them engaged.

“Trade your expectation for appreciation and the world changes instantly.” – Tony Robbins

“We must find the time to stop and thank the people who make a difference in our lives.” – John F. Kennedy

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Symptom or Cause?

Every time I get with my oldest group of friends we regress to being 12-year olds.  During a recent regression one of my buds said, “Dude! You had the best comeback of all time!  Remember when that guy said ‘Didn’t your mother teach you to wash your hands after you pee?!?!’  And you fired right back, ’My mother taught me not to pee on my hands!’”

I’ve always been (even when young and dumb) a believer in continual improvement and understanding why something was happening so that I could fix it once and not repeatedly.  I find it’s a good practice to identify if you are dealing with a SYMPTOM or a CAUSE when problem solving or discussing issues.

Say you cut your hand in the kitchen using a knife.  It’s easy to see the symptom - bleeding from a cut - and do something to fix it - put a band-aid on it.  The identifying and addressing the underlying cause can be a little bit harder and take a bit more effort.  In this case it might be not knowing how to properly use a knife or having poor manual dexterity.  And the fix might be to get training on how to use a knife or PT for your hand.  More time to address but just think of the band-aids and lost blood you will save!

Now, for a moment, think of a significant issue you are dealing with in your live that you want to address.  How much would it be worth it to spend a little more time upfront, in digging until you think you have found an underlying cause, and spend your efforts into addressing to causes not the symptoms?

“The measure of success is not whether you have tough problems to deal with, but whether it is the same problem you had last year.” - John Foster Dulles

“It’s so much easier to suggest solutions when you don’t know too much about the problem.” - Malcolm Forbes

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