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Entries in Goulston, Mark (47)

Monday

04Jan2010

Sex Addiction In The Rich And Famous Means Being Hooked On Adrenaline

Jan 4, 2010

Mark Goulston--

Sex addiction in Jane and John Doe is more about relief.

Sex addiction in the rich and famous is more about addiction to excitement.

Sex addiction in the rich and famous is slightly different than sex addiction in Jane and John Doe. For the rich and famous, the addiction is more about being hooked on adrenaline. However what such people that are excitement junkies never bargained for or prepared for is the fact that the thrill of an adrenaline rush is exceeded by the anguish of an adrenaline crash. It is similar to the crash off cocaine and people who are hooked on that will do almost anything to avoid it. Something that is both ultra-challenging (”Let’s see if I can get that babe at the bar to go upstairs and have sex with me”) plus forbidden (”Let’s see if I can get away with something that if caught could ruin my reputation”) is both a recipe for excitement, an adrenaline rush and disaster. There will always be an asterisk attached to Bill Clinton’s and now Tiger Woods’ careers because of their succumbing to it.

Sex addiction in the Jane and John Doe's of the world is about finding something that often starts with dealing with sexual rejection where a mate who withholds sex can trigger in their partner sexual acting out through a prostitute, an affair or pornography. Unfortunately that can escalate and become a quick way to relieve tension or feeling scattered and to a certain extent anxiety and depression. Or it can just be a way to rescue them from boredom. In average people it’s less about the excitement of an adrenaline rush than it is about relief.

There usually is a window of relief and even some calmness and ability to focus after engaging in the addiction when people can focus on what they need to do. The problem is that over time those periods of calmness and focus become less and less. And despite sexually addicted individuals proclaiming, “This will be the last time I engage in it,” after each incident, their will power is sadly no match for their addictive urges.

The reason a residential rehab program is so critical whether you’re one of the rich and famous or Jane or John Doe is that once you become swallowed up by it, you need an immersion program to interrupt the cycle.

Dr. Mark Goulston is the best selling author or four books and the critically acclaimed book, "Just Listen" Discover the Secret to Getting Through to Absolutely Anyone (AMACOM/Sept 2009). He is a business psychiatrist and works with executives, senior managers and sales teams to achieve breakthrough results by becoming better listeners.

He honed his skills as a UCLA professor of psychiatry for more than twenty- five years, FBI/police hostage negotiation trainer and clinical psychiatrist. He writes the weekly Tribune syndicated career advice column, "Solve Anything with Dr. Mark," writes on leadership for Fast Company and Directors Monthly and blogs for the Huffington Post. He is frequently called upon to share his expertise with regard to contemporary business, national and world news by television, radio and print media including: Wall Street Journal, Harvard Business Review, Fortune, Newsweek, Time, Los Angeles Times, ABC/NBC/CBS/Fox/CNN/BBC News, Oprah, and Today. He is a member of the International Leadership Association and has been a member of the National Association of Corporate Directors and the Worldwide Association of Business Coaches. Dr. Goulston was selected as one of the America Top Psychiatrists for 2009, 2005, 2004 by the Consumers Research Council of America. For more information visit: www.markgoulston.com.

Michael Jackson: Loved For Who He Once Was Or Not?

How Madoff's Moves Fooled "Smart" People

Feeling Stressed Out in This Economy?

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Monday

07Sep2009

Talk With Your Kid About The Future

Sep 7, 2009

Mark Goulston--

Talking with your kid about a future
they haven’t messed up (yet)
is worth hours of blaming, excuse making and endless arguing
over something they have

Whenever your pre-teen or teenage kid has screwed up, teaching them a lesson after the fact isn’t exactly the easiest task.

One of the best ways to avoid that is to use the “side by side” technique I’ve described in my about to be published book, “Just Listen” Discover the Secret to Getting Through to Absolutely Anyone (AMACOM, Sept. 15, 2009).

Do this while driving in the car (where you’re both looking forward instead of engaged in one of those face to face lectures that they can’t stand) or engaged in some activity or errand to “buffer” the conversation.

If it’s a pre-teen/middle schooler and they’ll still engage with you, say: “How can you tell which one of your friends is most likely to go too far and get in big trouble?”

They may smell a rat and say: “What?”

If so, continue with: “Yeah, I was just wondering which of your friends is likely to go too far this year, because if they do and you’re their friend, you might get pulled in to help them out. It might be helpful to know which one and what they might do, so you can be ready. I mean isn’t that what friends are for?”

You don’t start to lecture them or tell them to avoid that friend. Doing it this way is a way of helping them develop judgment about “going too far” and that doing so has consequences.

If they tolerate that question, ask them next: “While we’re on the topic of what’s coming up, how do you tell the difference between a class you need to stay up to date on and one you can kind of get away with doing stuff at the last minute?” This again helps sow the seeds for their developing the capacity for anticipation and for judgment.

You can use a similar approach with a wide variety of questions.

And if you’re dealing with a teenage high schooler (or even one in college) who doesn’t want any advice and says, “Just leave me alone!” (Know any who fit that description?) here is something you might try to that again leverages a future that they haven’t screwed up.

Say to them: “As you go through high school or college, your mom/dad and I and you can deal with you in one of two ways. In the first way, we can leave you alone, including waking you up, getting on your back about homework (this won’t work with an intrusive micromanaging parent), making introductions for you to people (tutors, friends who can give you a job, etc.) that can help you succeed and get ahead. You might actually prefer learning from your successes and failures and feel you’ve done it all by yourself. In the second way, we can put both feet in and do any and everything we can do to help you become successful and happy in life. However if we do that, you can’t talk to us disrespectfully, tell us to “shut up” or swear at us, and if we do set up opportunities for you with people outside, you have to keep us posted on what you’re doing so those people don’t think you’re a flake.”

Good luck. Your kids’ adolescence can be a bumpy ride.

P.S. If you like these kind of tips, I think you will like “Just Listen” and hope you’ll check it out and spread the word to your friends.

P.P.S. If you missed my FREE American Management Association webcast, “The Simple Secret to Getting Through to Difficult People” that had 1700+ attendees, you can catch it at: AMA webcast.

Michael Jackson: Loved For Who He Once Was Or Not?

What's in Store for Jaycee Dugard?

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Wednesday

02Sep2009

Entertainment Tonight: What's in Store for Jaycee Dugard? With Mark Goulston, M.D.

Sep 2, 2009

Having Horror Heard Helps Heal Hurt

Mark Goulston, M.D. will be on Entertainment Tonight, today, Wednesday, September 2 at 7 PM to discuss Jaycee Dugard and the possible effect her captivity has had on her and on her children.

Mark Goulston--

Imagine Jaycee's personality as a car that was happily waiting for a bus 18 years ago and then she was abducted by the Garridos, and taken to the compound that we are now seeing pictures of. Now instead of a personality adjusting to the world around you, think of an automobile transmission as the part of a car that adjusts and transmits the power to a car in response to the road it is on. Her transmission which was "geared" towards freedom and freedom of choice, suddenly had to be changed to one that had to cope with the threat of danger to survive.

It's as if previous to her kidnapping she could navigate her way into her future. However, after it she had to navigate her way to survive which was to either stop, go in reverse, or obediently move forward according to the will of Garrido.

Now suddenly she has been freed and she has to undergo a transmission overhaul while she is driving (this by the way is what soldiers have to do when returning from active service to military life). How would a person accomplish this?

The more variables you have to deal with, the worse your chance of making the transition successfully. Therefore using the car analogy, just as one would keep the frame, the tires, the electrical circuitry and other parts of the car the during a transmission overhaul, Jaycee should continue all the physically, mentally, emotionally and psychologically healthful activities that she may already be doing. That would be exercise, reading books, reading to her children, etc.

Once that foundation of helpful health inducing routines has been established, she should undergo therapy that is supportive while gently uncovering, experiencing fully and recovering from the traumas she has undergone.

It should not be rushed, but pivotal to her emotional healing, will be her telling the stories of what has happened to her in such excruciatingly specific detail that the therapist listening can see and possibly feel what Jaycee was going through. At those moments, if Jaycee can feel "felt" in a safe relationship, she will re-experience the feelings she had at the time of the event (the analogy would be the difference in how you would feel between your telling someone that your parent died and your telling someone in general terms that your parent died and your telling them about being in the hospital room when your parent took their last breath and then what you saw).

It is in that moment of reliving and re-experiencing the feelings you didn't have the chance to feel at the time of the trauma (because you were too busy trying to survive) that your personality has the possibility to reconfigure your internal relation to that event. When that happens you have the chance to change the way the world occurs to you and how you look at and most importantly interact with the world.

And that is the point at which you can begin to step out of your past, leave it behind you and step into your future.

If this speaks to you, be sure to check out my about to be released book: Just Listen Discover the Secret to Getting Through to Absolutely Anyone

Michael Jackson: Loved For Who He Once Was Or Not?

How Madoff's Moves Fooled "Smart" People

Feeling Stressed Out in This Economy?

What Caused Tiger Woods' Meltdown?

Aug 20, 2009

Mark Goulston--

Tiger, Tiger Burning Bright;

What Made Tiger So Uptight

- with apologies to William Blake (1757–1827)

Wow. Tiger Woods shoots 75 to lose the PGA. We knew it would happen sooner or later. What caused it?

Lack of dedication? Unlikely. Getting older? Maybe (no golfer is immune to the “yips’). Distracted by fatherhood, husbandhood, businesshood? Possibly.

Perhaps something else was afoot. The difference between true champions – Tiger being the preeminent example of that in the world – occasional winners and all others is that when a champion hits a wall and reaches inside himself or herself, they discover something that others lack. It’s called “heart.”

And what that “heart” says to a champion golfer is “Stop! Take a deep breath. You’re driving yourself nuts! Your mind is not working right, so just stop what you’re thinking. Connect with the fact that you’ve hit every conceivable shot thousands of times from every conceivable angle. Add to that the talent you know you have. And then just remember, ‘You’ve been here before. Just do what you need to do.’”

What usually teaches your heart to know and say such things when you reach into it is often a loving, devoted coach, teacher or mentor who either said those things verbally or communicated them to you atop the belief they had in you.

That is what happened to Tiger in the 1997. Playing in his second Masters golf tournament, Tiger had shot 40 on the opening nine holes of the tournament. At that moment, Tiger turned to his dad Earl and said something along the lines that he didn’t know what was happening (something he no doubt felt many times this past Sunday in the final round of the PGA). Earl looked into his son’s eyes and reflected back just how well prepared Tiger was for anything and said to him: “You’ve been here before, just do what you need to do.”

Tiger went on to win the Masters by 12 strokes shooting 18 under par, two records that have never been equaled.

Tiger’s competitive advantage has always been that when he hit a wall that would cause others to fall apart, he has nearly always been able to reach inside himself and discover his “heart” and in nearly all those cases it was held up and given to him by the loving, caring hands of his dad first in life and then in memory.

But on Sunday, August 16, 2009 playing in the final round of the PGA, a tournament he was leading, I think he felt all the eyes of the world including his wife and those of the two children that he is now a dad to. And on that day he reached inside and couldn’t find his dad or his heart.

Earl Woods died in May, 2006. I have heard it said that Tiger thinks about him and misses him every day. Tiger has gone on to great victories since then. And when instead of reaching for the steadying heart/hand of his dad during adversity, Tiger realizes and feels that Earl lives on, in and through him, he will not need to reach in to find his heart, he will play from it the whole game through. At that point he will go from the boy he was to the man he is. At that point he will be truly unstoppable.

Dr. Mark Goulston is the best selling author or four books and the upcoming, critically acclaimed book, "Just Listen" Discover the Secret to Getting Through to Absolutely Anyone (AMACOM/Sept 2009). He is a business psychiatrist and works with executives, senior managers and sales teams to achieve breakthrough results by becoming better listeners.

Michael Jackson: Loved For Who He Once Was Or Not?

How Madoff's Moves Fooled "Smart" People

Tiger Woods Knee Injury Is Permanent

Michael Jackson: Loved For Who He Once Was Or Not?

Jun 25, 2009

Mark Goulston--

It will become clearer within the next 24 hours what Michael Jackson's true cause of death will turn out to be. But what will be interesting may be how his untimely death will affect our memory of him.

The "King of Pop" has not done so well reputation wise for at least the past decade. What with the accusation of child sexual molestation, his ever changing appearance, the whitening of his skin, the tossing of one of his children outside a hotel window and many more bizarre incidents. As crazed as we once were about him, is as crazy as we came to think he was.

And now this. In all likelihood we will focus on who he once was instead of the person he ended up being.

It reminds me of than e experience that may be much closer to home for many, when you are having a hard time dealing with a relative who is becoming very burdensome after he or she has become incapacitated and exhausting to take care of. When you feel so weighed down, it's difficult to get in touch with the positive feelings you once had. But then when that person dies and the burden lifts, you can suddenly be overwhelmed by the flooding of loving feelings you once had, but were unable to feel.

And so it may be with Michael Jackson that as embarrassed as we came to feel by and for him during his recent past, is as fondly and gratefully we will forever be for how he "thrilled" us.

Dr. Mark Goulston is a former UCLA professor who helps high performing leaders, senior management and sales people reach their full potential using skills he learned training FBI and police hostage negotiators. He is a member of the National Association of Corporate Directors and the Worldwide Association of Business Coaches and writes the weekly Tribune syndicated career advice column, "Solve Anything with Dr. Mark" and columns on leadership for FAST COMPANY and Directors Monthly and is an expert at People Jam. He is frequently called upon to share his expertise with regard to contemporary business, national and world news by television, radio and print media including: Wall Street Journal, Harvard Business Review, Fortune, Newsweek, Time, Los Angeles Times, ABC/NBC/CBS/Fox/CNN/BBC News, Oprah, and Today. Mark Goulston is the author of The 6 Secrets of a Lasting Relationship, Get Out of Your Own Way: Overcoming Self-Defeating Behavior, Get Out of Your Own Way at Work and PTSD for Dummies. For more information visit: www.markgoulston.com.