Quotes from Mark Goulston

One of the most important keys to getting through to anyone and then influencing them is to realize that inside everyone's mind, they listen to someone or something.

As a general rule, when your child, or anyone in the work force, doesn't know what he/she wants to do, they should instead always be developing skills and competencies that will qualify them for the jobs that companies are most looking to fill and increase their hireability.

If and when they have a disagreement or argument, and if they can't resolve it, happy couples default to trusting and forgiving rather than distrusting and begrudging.

Every business needs to get out of their own mindset and into the aspirational mindsets of their customers and clients and create services and products that are beyond their customers' imagination but will be what they 'gotta have' in the future.

Braggarts are insecure and need attention, and bragging often has the opposite effect on most people when you're trying to gain their respect and increase your influence.

God only knows we need a great role model as a leader who is more leader than they are male or female, who is more about their mission that serves everyone than about ego and personal ambition that only serves them.

There will always be people who think that money and benefits and even just having a job should be thanks enough. There are also those that think they do a great job without anyone having to thank them. But study after study has shown that no one is immune from the motivating effects of acknowledgement and thanks.

Speak the truth. People will forgive an honest mistake; they won't forgive you if you lie.

One reason some people are long-winded is because they're trying to impress their conversational counterpart with how smart they are, often because they don't actually feel that way underneath. If this is the case for you, realize that continuing to talk will only cause the other person to be less impressed.

I can still remember my first experience of standing at the edge of the Grand Canyon and looking into it. It was so awesome, it took a fair amount of restraint to prevent me from jumping into it, because I was certain I could fly.

MIA stands for 'missing in action,' which is the way others can experience you when you're too busy multi-tasking, being pulled at by the world and by everything that's going on in your head, and, essentially, when you're too busy being busy.

When you listen with memory, you have an old agenda, and when you listen with desire, you have a new one. You can't listen to the other person if your agenda is overtaking you.

In the first 20 seconds of talking, your light is green: your listener is liking you as long as your statement is relevant to the conversation and, hopefully, in service of the other person. But unless you are an extremely gifted raconteur, people who talk for more than roughly half a minute at a time are boring and often perceived as too chatty.

One of the best ways to see how critical being present is to effective leadership is to notice what being absent, distracted, hiding something, and/or agenda-driven does to people's ability to trust, respect, and have confidence in you.

In my line of work, I frequently communicate with CEOs and their executive assistants, and nowhere is the need for gratitude more clear.

The amygdala is like a point guard in the emotional part of your middle brain. When it is overwhelmed, it hijacks you away from being able to access your upper rational brain and think and assess what to do. It essentially disables your ability to think.

Without the ambition to raise oneself to life's challenges, growth and innovation would never happen.

Despair – or as I like to call it, des-pair – means feeling unpaired in a world in which it feels like everyone else is paired with a good job, a happy marriage, loving family, caring, and hope – and you're not.

There is something calming and emotionally restoring when you focus on gratitude for a known deed that helped you, instead of fear of the unknown.

Show people a positive path that enables them to make progress on their own terms. Give them options and alternatives that empower them.

Customers are your best teachers. Learning about your customer's beliefs, values, and priorities teaches you which selling points you should emphasize.

You can't create more jobs for an economy where the vast majority of people are hesitant and even afraid to spend and buy.

Very often, when you get into a conversation that's more of a debate, you'll pick up that the other person is venting at you. And when someone vents at you, it triggers a reaction. You get defensive and vent back.

When you ask someone a question, you trigger an unconscious flashback of their having been put on the spot earlier in life by a teacher, parent, or coach, and you create a syntactical 'you versus me' disconnect.