Quotes from Mark Goulston

When winning is everything and everyone does whatever they need to win and to not lose, including lying, you have a world in which 'basic trust' is lost.

Just like the athlete who has mapped out a plan to become one of the best athletes in the world by putting together a training program and executing it, he too should map out a financial plan from the beginning of his athletic career throughout every stage of his career.

Human beings invent just as many ways to sabotage their lives as to improve them.

One absolutely crucial element in moving your brain from panic to logic is to put words to what you're feeling at each stage.

Don't be afraid of sharing your vulnerabilities. Vulnerability doesn't make you weak, it makes you accessible. Know that your vulnerability can be your strength. —KEITH FERRAZZI, AUTHOR, WHO'S GOT YOUR BACK

To strengthen your interpersonal influence, don't win arguments. Instead, win hearts and minds.

Perpetually needy people suck the life out of you, because no matter what you do for them, it's never enough.

I need to talk to you about something. I was so busy feeling upset with you and then acting impatient and irritated that I stepped on your toes instead of walking in your shoes. When I stopped to do that, I thought if I were you, I'd feel frustrated (scared, angry, etc.). Is that true?

Perceiving is believing. Misperceiving is deceiving— And worse yet, prevents achieving.

Mark Twain once said, "Most conversations are monologues in the presence of witnesses.

Emotions are built on layers. Beneath hatred is usually anger; beneath anger is frustration; beneath frustration is hurt; beneath hurt is fear. If you keep expressing your feelings, you will generally move through them in that order. What begins with "I hate you" culminates in "I'm scared. I don't want to lose you, and I don't know what to do about it.

What Got You Here Won't Get You There.

Remember: You can't always change the people around you. But you can change the people you're around.

These elements of the Side-by-Side approach—asking questions during a shared moment, and then deepening the conversation with more questions—are as powerful as communication gets: so powerful that they form the core of the Socratic Method. Socrates never told anybody anything; he just walked around town with people asking them questions until they figured out the answers themselves, and in the process he helped create Western civilization.

These people work hard and do their best, and they want the world to acknowledge that they're intelligent, valuable, and creative.

Understanding a person's hunger and responding to it is one of the most potent tools you'll ever discover for getting through to anyone you meet in business or your personal life.

Life is a series of steps into the unknown.

Those who are comfortable taking chances know that the best way to grow is to reach beyond their grasp. Their sense of direction comes from the heart. They don't shy away from surprise; they might even seek it out. And they seldom die with regrets. In the end we regret not what we have done but what we have not done.

People who were abused as children tend to get angry and strike out at the world. People who were neglected tend to feel defeated and withdraw from the world. People who were not given guidance tend to lack confidence and self-reliance. Each pathway leads to different forms of self-defeat.

In this situation, your success hinges entirely on talking the person up from reptile to mammal to human brain

happiness is actually more closely tied to how you perceive and emotionally react to the events and people around you. That's because people who perceive the world as positive or negative will react to it positively or negatively.

If someone can't or won't listen to you, get him to listen to himself.

While the simple act of naming the emotions you feel at each stage in a crisis is part of the solution, it's just the first step.

Questioning works better than telling. That's why Will didn't tell Evan, "Don't let your friends get you into trouble." Instead, he asked questions that made Evan think, "Who's likely to get into trouble, and what should I do if it happens?" In other words, Will didn't talk down to Evan, or talk at him. Instead, the two talked side by side emotionally as well as physically.