Tag Archives: behavioral psychology

Renewing My Vows

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ax_leavesHopefully, I’ll be around so my actions teach my children this post before their first kiss.

If not, then I leave it to point them in the right direction. Read it to them annually, at graduations and at their weddings.

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Have you ever heard couples discussing their wedding vows? Perhaps wondering if they should include “honor and obey” in the words they exchange? That seems silly to me because it overlooks the essential components of EVERY long-term relationship.

What follows is how I try to live my marriage, and through my marriage interact with everybody. It wasn’t always this way – as a young man, my greatest weakness was a lack of compassion and an inability to see the second order consequences of my habit of hurting other people.

What are the most important ways that we honor each other?

First, and most importantly, is a commitment not to hurt other people.

Relationships fail when we get caught in a cycle of keeping score, tit-for-tat and not breaking the chain.

We don’t even need to be in the same room with each other to perpetuate this cycle. When I hear about marriages through third parties, I can feel the pain that the couple is creating for each other.

So I offer: I’ll do my best not to hurt you and ask that you forgive me for the many times that I’ll fall short.

Small children understand forgiveness instinctively. Each morning, I get a fresh start and, hopefully, I see each morning as a chance to get a little better than yesterday.

Now, my children will be like me in many ways. This means that they will arrive at adulthood with habits that will torpedo their relationships if not addressed. The most toxic of these habits is enjoying subtle retribution and justified anger.

So I offer: When I feel pain, I know it will be because I you have touched one of my many limitations. I vow to turn that knowledge inwards and try to make incremental progress.

I’ve been married for close to a decade. By chipping away a little bit each day, I make progress and, together, we strengthen our marriage.

It is my improvement, not my position, that makes me fit for leadership, and shows that I’m worthy of being honored.

Being honored for experience is great but being forgiven is much more valuable than being honored.

In a successful relationship, my errors are forgiven, rather than acting as triggers on top of 5, 10 or 15 years of repressed, mutually reinforced pain.

My dearest, I promise that I can handle the truth.

In life, we are tempted to protect others from the truth. This is a mistake and you will find that your strongest relationships are built on being open. In sharing our individual truths, we can work towards understanding what rings true as a couple.

The wisdom of these lessons becomes clear when you invert them.

Relationship failure is characterized by retribution, blame outside of myself and suppression of truth.

I failed many times before I learned a better way.

In order to shape my reality, I started by accepting it.

Chose wisely.

What To Do, when you don’t know what to do

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familyA couple weeks ago, I was flying Southwest and the passenger beside me was a bit unhinged. He didn’t seem dangerous, but kept inserting delusional rants into a well-informed discussion of current events.

The rest of the plane was avoiding eye-contact but, with him on the aisle and me in the middle, I didn’t have anywhere to go!

I figured that I’d put my hospice training to work and see what happened…

Six words that can profoundly change your interactions with the world, and through that, the reality that you experience with your day-to-day living.

When I think about my first response to stress, it’s the opposite of the tenets: I know you’re wrong, I want to flee you and I resist you.

My kids make my instincts obvious to me. If your kids are angels then you might have to look into other areas of your life:

  • A dying parent, or patient
  • A chatty stranger on the bus
  • A fellow citizen on the opposite side of an emotional issue
  • A kid yelling FART at my daughter’s birthday party
  • An angry family member

I get a physical signal, a tightening in my chest, before my mind kicks into high gear. The physical sensation is my chance to save myself from falling into past patterns.

These situations leave me feeling scared and unsure what to do. On the Southwest flight, I had to remind myself that the passenger had to get through security so probably didn’t have a gun, or knife, on him. Yes, I was worried that he was going to kill me!

In turn, my fear leads me to close off, or engage by digging into my existing beliefs. Classic flight or fight.

However, if I’m aware of my fears then, I can pause and try to help the other person. When I do this, I’m helping myself because I escape my cycle of fear/closing and/or fear/engaging.

Bearing witness – one of our deepest needs is to be seen, to be acknowledged. Watching how the rest of the world treats the aged, a difficult child or the crazy guy on the Southwest flight… I see that I can do the entire world (or at least my fellow passengers) a favor by acknowledging my seat mate for a little while.

Not knowing – listening to other people speak, particularly odd-ball cranks, there is another voice in my head. The inner voice is constantly disagreeing, challenging, explaining why the other person is wrong.

When I’m quiet enough to hear the other voice, I see it’s not rational. It takes the opposite side to whatever it’s hearing. Much like the initial reaction of my three-year old son!

In a situation that doesn’t matter (like talking to a stranger), play a game where you “don’t know.” You’ll find that it is relaxing to give yourself permission to not-know. In turn, a habit of not-knowing prevents needless conflict with kids, at work and in your marriage.

The “not knowing” exercise is a neat one because, when you see the power of change in areas that don’t matter, you’ll unlock an insight into how the only thing that matters is the little things!

Compassionate action – in the case of my eccentric seat mate, it was easy to see the best thing for everyone was for me to listen, with a mind that didn’t know. In fact, I’ve been doing more and more listening.

If you think about it then I’ll bet you can come up with situations where you had NO IDEA about the right course of action:

  • Friend with cancer
  • Friend who had parent die
  • Friend who had child die
  • Divorcing couple
  • Friend with child with developmental difficulties
  • Depressed friend
  • Friend with substance abuse issues
  • Bankrupt friend

When you don’t know what to do, I hope you remember Joan’s advice.

As for my pal on Southwest, he thanked me for my kindness and scurried off the plane.

He left me with a warm feeling of a job well done.

Be brave.

The Middle-Aged Athlete

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ec_hatLast weekend, a bunch of my pals were in Hawaii for Ironman. Watching from a distance, Ironman is a reminder that the human body can do some incredible things. While the race is neat, what’s most impressive is the training load that the competitors put themselves through. The physical output, over many years, is impressive – sitting here, I can’t believe I was able to do it!

I’ve had success coaching men between 40 and 75 years old (as well as women from 40 to 55 years old). Interestingly, it’s the guys who are most prone to saying, “I wonder if I’m getting old.” Top amateur women just keep on rolling, about the only thing that slows them down is injury and illness.

On the other hand, guys get really tired. I like to joke with my wife that I get Man-Fatigue – like man flu – it’s a whole different level of fatigue from what she experiences.

What follows isn’t for my pals, who are still crushing it. Keep doing what you love for as long as it makes sense. I miss those days, and you will too! It’s for the rest of you – particularly, if you were a top athlete in your 20s and 30s.

When it comes to aging, I hear this a lot…

  • Age is just a number
  • You’re only old when your age is an excuse
  • 40 is the new 30

These sayings are linked to the first phase of aging – holding on against the natural progression of time. I’m more fond of saying, “this is what 45 looks like and it’s not so bad!”

In my peer group, characterized by exceptional will, a few can extend the “holding on” phase into their 50s and, extremely rarely, their 60s. You can find examples of these special humans (!) on the Big Island each October. I know a few and they are amazing people.

What lies hidden is the psychological, and physical cost, from living an unnatural life. When we put ourselves together in a peer group, that consists of much younger 1%’ers, we’re left wondering… what’s wrong with me? Why can’t I be like XXXX? Am I getting old?

I used to think that I’d be hanging on. Now, I’m not so sure. At first, I thought it was my kids making me tired but there seems to be something deeper at work. Time will tell. Maybe I’ll get a second wind in my 50s! 🙂

When I catch myself thinking that a return to my 20s/30s will improve my life – I say…

  • It’s amazing how much exercise I was able to do
  • I’m grateful to have had the opportunity to compete at a high level

Wonder and gratitude are effective antidotes to mourning the past.

Another thing that I’ve noticed is I get an excellent mood response from small doses of exercise. I have to remind myself of this A LOT so I don’t fry myself.

With exercise, generosity, novelty…happiness links better to frequency than intensity, or dosage.

How do you know if you’re holding on too tight?

  • Ask the people closest to you
  • Pay attention to frequent orthopedic injury
  • Pay attention to frequent depression, or anger

If you aspire to performances that were extreme when you were 10-25 years younger then be sure to spend time with people your own age, as you age.

Trying to be the 1% of the 1% can lead to a rough ride as the years roll on.

Choose wisely.

Helping Kids Hear

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Vail MountainI was back at preschool community night last week and we were chatting about the issues that face parents. A biggie…

How can I make my kids listen to me?

I can’t.

What I can do is create the conditions where my kids might hear me, and use behavioral psychology to increase compliance.

Key things that I’ve noticed:

Space to comply – when the kids are running around being kids, it can take a LONG time for me to understand what my wife is saying. In fact, it can take so long that she might get frustrated with me, even when I hear her. I’m guessing that a three-year old has a similar comprehension lag.

Solution – ALWAYS count to three in my head to give the kid time to hear, and time to comply

Don’t Scare My Children Witless – Am I creating an environment where my kids are able to understand me? Not always.

Never Repeat – the moms at the preschool meeting HATE repeating themselves. My solution is to observe how many times I repeat myself.

Why?

Because our kids don’t need to listen if we’re always repeating!

By the way, it’s difficult to ask the kids not to repeatedly ask me for stuff if I’m always doing the same to them. Be the change.

Talk To My Eyes – when my house is full, I spend most my time with sensory overload. I get so fried I can’t think, write or function. Once I’m fried, everyone needs to talk directly to my eyes. It takes a little extra effort but then they don’t have to repeat. 🙂

Finally, is it worth listening to what I have to say? Are my expectations reasonable? What’s my ratio of positive-to-negative interactions?

When I turn the issue on it’s head, I’ve found myself lacking in many relationships – not just with my kids.

ax

Ten Lessons From The Great Recession

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pawneeFor my family, September 2014 marked the the end of the Great Recession, which (for us) had started in October 2008. Navigating the recession took a year longer than my worst case assumption of five years.

I wanted to share my lessons as I can feel the temptation to ignore them returning!

#1 – You can’t know your partners – I’ve lived with friends for up to six months at a time and had no idea about their personal situation – my favorite quote here is one about knowing your marriage… “if you’re lucky then you might know 50% of your marriage, YOUR half.”

#2 – Burn rate kills – Between October 2008 and March 2009, I lost 100% of my net income. Without significant changes, I knew the loss of income would screw up our family finances. I would have really freaked if I knew that interest rates were going to zero! Staying variable enabled us to cut 90% of business expenses and 50% of household expenses – these were gone by April 2009. The lesson here is to be very careful of building up long-term financial commitments.

#3 – Real Estate, even prime, is only liquid in a bull market – there is an urban myth that real estate is a low volatility asset class. Until 2009, there were many national markets that had NEVER gone down! I will not be able to time the market – I should always be willing to sell early – future purchases should only be made for assets that the family is willing to hold for more than 25 years.

#4 – For my core capital, my benchmark return is zero – there is a portion of my family balance sheet that would be very painful to lose. Don’t risk capital for tiny yield – examples here are constantly pedaled by brokers (foreign currency deposits, derivative-linked investments, highly-leveraged investment schemes, alternative assets, growth stocks).

#5 – I’m a better man when I’m constrained – This applies in all areas of my life. At the peak of the boom there was tremendous ego and waste in my life. I’m very fortunate that life gave me a kick in the butt and I had to make choices. I don’t have the emotional maturity to be unconstrained in action, maybe someday!

#6 – Create plans B, C and D – ring fence different aspects of your life, and finances – NEVER guarantee another person’s obligations (see #1 above). In 2014, my life has a series of fallback plans to deal with potential setbacks – I spent the recession taking steps to protect myself, my wife, my kids, and my family.

#7 – Investment properties should avoid furnished rentals, anything with a material housing association payment, and anything with a cost to hold (vacant) that’s greater than long term interest rates – I made good money by investing in real estate through the bottom but would have done better by focusing on properties with a lower cost to hold.

#8 – low-cost passive index investing gives me what I need. The best gamblers I know take a profit-share on other people’s money and use non-recourse leverage.

#9 – stop trying to win – I misallocate energy, money and time when I forget that a simple life is a good life. Reaching for external success and excessive financial wealth leads to poor decisions and choices. I make my best choices when I measure wealth in terms of health, controlling my schedule and sharing time with people I love.

#10 – don’t capitalize luxury expenditure – particularly, second homes and depreciable assets – stay variable!

My errors and misjudgments persist across cultures and generations!

Choose Wisely

 

Hare-Brained Schemes

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I’ve found that if you create something trivial to be anxious about, it cancels out serious things that you might be anxious about.

– Malcolm Gladwell, WSJ

The patriarch of a family that I advise gave me a call to ask my advice on an investment with a very low probability of success…

“Am I crazy to do this?

Should I simply toss it in the trash?”

We think alike and his questions were a reflection of my own thinking… no way you’re going to make this work, it’s likely a waste of money, yada yada yada…

My advice?

Go for it. Absolutely.

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Here’s why…

The deal was in an area that’s far outside his core competency. Having the opportunity to learn, to make mistakes, to create is a lot of fun. When I’m having fun, I do all aspects of my life better (husband, father, consultant).

The deal has a limited financial and time downside. The risk of time is often overlooked – time spent worrying, time spent seeking to fix a low performer, time not spent working on a strength. My pal is very good at his strengths and has a young family. Spending additional time learning new skills is “worth” the small downsides.

As Gladwell notes, when we’re working on a modest hare-brained scheme, we are far less likely to dream up something that risks a material chunk of our net worth, have an affair, quit our job, or pursue any of the other areas of Human Misjudgment.

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Related to the above, if you have trouble being financially sensible, or get a thrill from risk, then a smart way to manage yourself is to allocate a small portion of your net cash flow towards casino-type investing, or actual trips to the casino!

You’ll find that your brain doesn’t require a large stake to excite itself with anticipation and you can stay open to the creative side of your personality.

Call it your “Fund of Fun” and use if for Vacations, Luxuries and Hare-Brained Schemes.

Allocate a portion of your cash flow (and time) towards these schemes.

Keep the rest of your life sensible and run it on autopilot.

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Personal note – I always know that I’m holding onto my “rules” too tightly when my wife starts telling me to “be more fun.”

Truth be told, I’m terrified of breaking the rules because there’s nothing I like better (in the moment) than a massive binge!

I need a “fun budget” more than anyone.

Binging is a clear sign of holding on too tightly.

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Finally, pay attention to how “the things that you think will make you happy” make you feel. I’ve noticed a HUGE difference between what I think I need and what makes me content.

  • I’m fond of adversity in hindsight
  • More food, more alcohol, more sleep, more money, more fatigue – MORE is not my answer
  • It doesn’t take much of a hangover to negate the small marginal gain from extreme living.
  • We are naturally loss averse – the trick is to frame choices to take advantage of this tendency
  • I’m prone to forget the joy of serenity, stillness and simplicity

Anyhow, that’s my list. I sincerely hope that you take the time to write your own.

Don’t wait to start living.

Micro Courage

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axel_lionHow do I cultivate deep strength and resiliency?

We might describe resiliency as…

  • The capacity to continue despite life’s setbacks
  • The ability to become stronger due to stress (anti-fragility)
  • The strength to handle anything

They sound great, grand and completely unattainable!

I’m going to guide you through how I break it down into something that I can action in my daily living.

Start by flipping it on it’s head, what are the characteristics of the not-resilient? Think of the biggest head case you know…

  • Angry
  • Anxious
  • Depressed

When I think about anger and anxiety, they strike me as cultural expressions of fear. At some level, we see angry men and anxious women as normal. I feel both emotions all the time and they make me less effective.

What to do?

Over the last two years, I’ve been experimenting with micro-courage.

I started by printing up 50 life lessons and highlighting the ones that I wanted to focus on (11, 12, 18, 26, 27, 28, 37, 42, 49). If you come by my office, you’ll see they are taped near my printer…

lifelessonsReflecting on the lessons, I paid particular attention to three:

  • Let your children see you cry
  • Forgive everyone everything
  • Yield

I’d encourage you to find your own (triggers).

The game is to focus your actions on situations at the edge of what you can handle.

Here’s an example:

  • There are lots of homeless folks on the Boulder Creek Bike Path. Some of these folks are violent, others are mentally ill, still others are addicts. As a group, they scare the crap out of me.
  • While I have pals that work with the homeless, I don’t have any clue how to “fix” this problem and often wish the problem would go away (so I don’t have to deal with my inability to deal with it!).
  • Anyhow, there’s one guy that sits by the creek in the 28th St underpass and says good morning to everyone that runs, rides and walks past him. He’s a drinker and can get a little sloppy towards the end of the day.
  • I can’t fix the city’s homeless challenges but I can offer the guy a bit of human connection as I ride by. I look at him, smile and take a breath in. On the face of it, I’m smiling at him but, in reality, I’m staying open to the fear within myself. That’s micro-courage.

The story repeats itself in every part of my life that I want to close off.

I try to “stay open” as many times a day as I can.

The problem can be homelessness, litter, aggression, poor driving, manners, food quality… keep it small, remember to breathe in through your nose with a tiny smile.

Staying open to a small fear, a slight inconvenience, a little bit of sadness… I call it micro-courage.

The habit has been transformative in situations that I used to find overwhelming.

This is what I meant when I wrote that strength comes from staying open to little fears.

Courage is a powerful antidote to fear, anxiety and anger.

Be brave.

True Strength

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g_aqua

One of my coaches, Mark Allen, made the observation that to get our race in order, we need to get our lives in order. Racing, like any other form of stress, can strip away our filters.

Mark’s advice is an example of an athletic lesson with a wide application into everyday living.

We share a desire to be strong. This desire is expressed by building up and adding to one’s self.

  • Adding size through muscles, bulk, heels, boots
  • Adding tension from taking on obligations
  • Adding palmares from victories
  • Adding possessions and external signs of power

I’ve done it all: cowboy boots; academic honors; powerlifting; fancy cars; big houses; jewelry for my wife…

Adding, adding, adding.

The list above is about our external life. Building up is a projection of strength, but it isn’t true strength. I think Mark is pointing us towards something that might become resiliency. An integrated life where we are in harmony with our external projection and OK with all aspects of our experience (strong/weak, happy/sad). This harmony lets us cope with the tests of our races (and lives).

Perhaps you’ve had a situation where you tell yourself to be “strong” but a more accurate description is a fear that our inner storm might show through. Having completely fallen apart a few times, isn’t that big of a deal. I don’t want to make a habit of it but I also don’t want to spend my life holding tight and letting the pressure build within me.

When tired, when grieving, when sick, when stressed… life has a way of stripping our filters away.

But how can we process our inner life?

  • Exercise works well for me – moderate effort, repeated movements
  • Others prefer meditation – cultivating stillness and observing one’s mind
  • Many find the combination of breathing and movement in yoga to be effective
  • Thrill seekers tend towards extreme risk and peak experience – works for them but doesn’t work for the larger goals of my family

If we keep peeling away our layers then we might find that the joke is on us.

Why?

Ultimately, every individual unravels.

It can be terrifying when we bump into this reality. You may have experienced this fear through the death of friends, parents and grandparents.

Ultimately, we might find comfort in defining resiliency in terms of something larger than ourselves – family, legacy, lineage, tradition.

Cultivate courage by staying open towards little fears.

Free My Mind

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monsyWhat’s the difference between knowledge and wisdom?

Time, perhaps.

My friend, and his father, are both surgeons. The older doctor shared that ‘half of everything I learned, turned out to be wrong.‘

When I think back to my formal education, a good chunk appears to have been wrong. Of course, studying economics in the 1980s gives one an edge in the search for academic humility.

Why does this matter?

Knowing that most my knowledge will prove meaningless helps me decide where to focus thought. Some questions that I ask myself when I’m wound up…

Could I be having this discussion 10, 100 or 1,000 years ago?

– Nutrition, exercise protocol, the body fat percentage of myself and friends… All are recent phenomena. Not worth devoting much share of mind towards.

– Living well, meaning, time allocation… These questions track back to the ancients.

How long has this problem persisted?

– I love this question with regard to young children. They have been a challenge for parents across thousands of years. My odds of transcendence are long!

Under what conditions is the opposite opinion correct?

– This one is a loaded question because, once you realize that there’s always a situation where the opposite applies, it’s easier to develop tolerance for those who oppose us.

Am I sure?

The benefit of experience is that I’m not sure about much. However, there is a small list of traits where I am quite sure.

It Wasn’t Good For Me

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gnomeA number of my pals triathlon’ed from Vancouver to Calgary over the last two weeks. They did the journey as part of something called Epic Camp and I highly recommend Scott Molina’s blog about the trip. I’ve been chuckling along as the crew drill themselves daily across the Canadian Rockies.

In reading Molina’s diary of their adventure, I’ve been feeling three emotions…

Joy that Scott is able to keep on trucking. The guy’s 54 years old and he’s still able to love training at the edge of human endurance. Epic Camp is about the mental component of performance and Scott personifies joy from suffering.

Continuing amazement at what people can accomplish. It’s tempting to put ultra-athletes into a separate category as genetic freaks. The reality is most ultra-athletes are fairly normal physically. The differences arise in their capacity to embrace obsession and the way they experience fatigue & suffering.

Finally, I experience a deep sense of gratitude for my life in Boulder. When I was living my life of extreme athletic performance, I couldn’t see the cost of my status quo.

By the way, lots of people talk about the health risks of extreme exercise. I think that you are right but you’re missing the point. See the camp for what it is… a binge. I’ve always enjoyed a good binge. It’s something I need to watch. Also, so long as you don’t go banana’s with the running, the main short-term risk (to your kidneys) is limited.

Scott knows, and shares, the requirements for athletic success. He’s far more open than any other triathlon writer, myself included.

What’s yet to be published is the total reality of seeking our ultimate triathlon potential. Outside of triathlon, Sam Fussell gave it a shot with bodybuilding. His book, Muscle, is an entertaining account of the life of a full-time amateur (AKA a life similar to most tri-pros). Leaving the extreme drug use to one side, the parallels with my life are many.

I’ve often wanted to write the “whole truth” about my life. I’m most open with the non-racing spouses of my training pals. They know enough about my world to be entertained but aren’t so invested that I challenge their identities with my observations.

I looked deeper into my motivation and saw a desire to protect my children from my near misses. However, my children’s obsession is certainly going to be different than my own and they will resent being told what to do by their, ultimately, sixty-something father.

Here’s where Sam’s book comes into it’s own. The hero in Sam’s book is his mom. She keeps the lines of communication open, accepts Sam for who he his and frees him to change his mind on his own timetable.

As we ascend to the top, we can lose the goodness of our youth. It’s no accident that the highest-achievers had very difficult childhoods. It’s a rare person that becomes more kind under extreme stress – at Epic Camp, Bevan James Eyles is the best example that comes to mind. He was always part of the solution. The rest of us acted like wolves, or hyenas.

What helps everyone is encouragement to hold onto a piece of goodness and stay open when the little voice says, “this isn’t good for you.”

…and while I have no idea who is doing the talking… I know that following that voice has led me to a wonderful life.

Lex