Quotes from Mark Goulston

Empathy is a sensory experience; that is, it activates the sensory part of your nervous system, including the mirror neurons we've talked about. Anger, on the other hand, is a motor action—usually a reaction to some perceived hurt or injury by another person. So by taking people out of anger and shifting them into an empathic behavior, the Empathy Jolt moves them from the motor brain to the sensory brain.

anger and empathy—like matter and antimatter—can't exist in the same place at the same time. Let one in, and you have to let the other one go. So when you shift a blamer into empathy, you stop the person's angry ranting dead in its tracks.

If you want to have an interesting dinner conversation, be interested. If you want to have interesting things to write, be interested. If you want to meet interesting people, be interested in the people you meet—their lives, their history, their story. Where are they from? How did they get here? What have they learned? By practicing the art of being interested, the majority of people can become fascinating teachers; nearly everyone has an interesting story to tell.

Something I know about seemingly confident people, and especially people who work in large companies, is that often they're more afraid of making a mistake than they are of wanting to do something right.

You know the old saying, "If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen." Well, if you always get out as soon as the kitchen gets hot, your life will end up half-baked.

A communications expert once made this distinction: "A know-it-all who doesn't know what he is talking about is a jerk. A know-it-all who does know what he is talking about is just an ass.

Making someone "feel felt" simply means putting yourself in the other person's shoes. When you succeed, you can change the dynamics of a relationship in a heartbeat. At that instant, instead of trying to get the better of each other, you "get" each other and that breakthrough can lead to cooperation, collaboration, and effective communication.

Giselle Chapman was hired by Bristol-Myers Squibb, one of the leading pharmaceutical companies at that time. She became their number one sales representative, and went on to form her own consulting company.

You can't fix something until you admit it's broken.

That is what learning is. You suddenly understand something you've understood all your life, but in a new way." —DORIS LESSING Ordinary

The key to fixing a big problem is to select the right tools.

It's hard to realize that you might be wrong when you think you're right—especially when your logic, analysis, emotions, experience, and preparation all point toward your conclusion. As Mark Twain said, "It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so.

That is what learning is. You suddenly understand something you've understood all your life, but in a new way." —DORIS LESSING

You're in trouble if you're trying to gain buy-in from someone who's feeling angry, defiant, upset, or threatened because, in these situations, the person's higher brain isn't calling the shots. If you're talking to a boss, a customer, a spouse, or a child whose lower brain or midbrain is in control, you're talking to a cornered snake or, at best, a hysterical rabbit.

Sometimes when you're really scared, your amygdala instantly shuts out your higher brain, causing you to act on primitive instinct. Most of the time, however, the amygdala sizes up a situation before making its

intervene before the amygdala hits the boiling point, and the person's higher brain can stay in control.

we're finding that humans, just like macaques, have neurons that act as mirrors. In fact, studies suggest that these remarkable cells may form the basis for human empathy. That's because, in effect, they transport us into another person's mind, briefly making us feel what the person is feeling.

Until someone says "no" to you, you're not asking for enough.

Transtheoretical Model of Change

When people go on the attack it's usually because they feel (rightly or wrongly) that they've been treated poorly. That's especially true if you're dealing with angry and frustrated customers. Often such people feel hurt in many areas of life but save their "road rage" for outbursts that they believe won't get them fired, divorced, or arrested—like kicking the dog or yelling at you.

Becoming defensive or counterattacking simply reinforces the idea that you think these people are wrong and unimportant (and stupid), which amplifies their mirror neuron gap and fuels their fire. When you make a counterintuitive move and encourage them to talk, you do the opposite: You mirror respect and interest, and they feel compelled to send the same message back.

The secret of getting ahead is getting started. —AGATHA CHRISTIE, MYSTERY AUTHOR

Move a person from hostility to mild confusion and already you've moved one step in the right direction.

So the first thing you need to do is to break down the thick walls between these silos. To do that, build on the things all silos have in common: the sky above (a shared vision) and the ground below (shared values).