by Tony Mayo | For Business Owners
…integrating thinking and feeling is a desirable mental state, but many people have a hard time reasoning clearly when they’re upset, or bringing emotion into conceptual activities like planning.
Researchers have recently found that the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) is very involved with weaving thought and feeling together. They’ve also shown that the conscious control of attention is centered in the ACC, which is measurably strengthened by activities that train attention such as meditation. In another example, studies have shown that tuning into the emotional states of others–a central component of empathy–depends on the activity of the insula. The insula also handles interoception, the sensing of the internal state of the body, so mental activities such as sensory awareness activate and eventually thicken the insula, and thereby increase empathy.
In effect, investigators have found that a method used for one purpose (meditation, or sensory awareness) can stimulate and strengthen brain regions that are also involved with another purpose (integrating thinking and feeling, or empathy).
—Rick Hanson, Ph.D. is a clinical psychologist, author, and teacher with
a great interest in the intersection of psychology, neurology, and Buddhism.
He has written and taught extensively about the essential inner skills of personal well-being,psychological growth, and contemplative practice–as well as about relationships,family life, and raising children. A summa cum laude graduate of UCLA,Rick did management consulting before earning his Ph.D.
See free, easy Meditation Instructions on this blog.
by Tony Mayo | Communication, Conversation, & Confrontation, For Business Owners, How to Set Goals
You have probably heard the old adage, “If you want something done, ask a busy person to do it.” Though often attributed to the very busy Lucille Ball, the insight may be as old as civilization. People who know how to get things done gain a reputation for effectiveness and have many opportunities to be busy.
My CEO executive coaching clients are very busy and receive many requests to get things done from employees, shareholders, clients, family members, churches, governments, non-profits, etc., etc. So many requests, in fact, that they often find themselves expending time and attention on things that are not their top priorities. They may also find themselves letting people down, backing out of promises, and feeling inadequate.
I often need to train my clients on how to say, “No.”
I developed my technique many years ago when I had established a strong reputation as an effective volunteer in an organization I supported. This reputation led to a deluge of requests, more than I could responsibly accept. Here is the formula:
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by Tony Mayo | For Business Owners, For Fun, Team Manager Skills
Study indicates that employees who are trusted by managers do better work and are more loyal to their employer.
A Closer Look at Trust Between Managers and Subordinates: Understanding the Effects of Both Trusting and Being Trusted on Subordinate Outcomes
The authors propose that trust in the subordinate has unique consequences beyond trust in the manager. Furthermore, they propose joint effects of trust such that subordinate behavior and intentions are most favorable when there is high mutual trust. Findings reveal unique (more…)
by Tony Mayo | Communication, Conversation, & Confrontation, For Business Owners, For Salespeople, Meetings, Recommended Books, Sales Techniques, Videos & Podcasts
Here is a complete toolkit for implementing one of my most powerful and versatile techniques, The Conversation Contract™. Leading psychologist Thomas Harris, author of the bestselling I’m OK–You’re OK, developed the basic process to help people conduct the most important and stressful conversations in their lives. I have refined it over the past fifteen years in my work with salespeople, managers, government officials, and CEOs to its present form. You can use it for better meetings, telephone calls, and family interactions.
Start with this video and reinforce your skills with the printouts linked below. You may also want to use my 12 Step Program for productive confrontation by clicking here, Conversations that Make a Difference.
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by Tony Mayo | For Business Owners, For Executive Coaches
Alessandro Bianchi
Marshall Goldsmith, nearly always introduced as “America’s foremost executive coach,” has written some fine books and helped many executives. My only complaint is that what he does, in my experience, is advising and consulting not executive coaching.
The vital difference is evident in his post today at the Harvard Business Review website, How to Spot the Uncoachables. Goldsmith describes his executive coaching clients in negative terms more appropriate to a particularly judgmental therapist than a respectful coach: “wrong direction,” “fix behavior,” and “It’s hard to help people who don’t think they have a problem.”
How many psychiatrists does it take to change a light bulb? (more…)
by Tony Mayo | Client Comments
Over ten years ago, I conducted a group coaching program for executives. The participants got fantastic results and I got some nice publicity, including the cover of the Washington Times business section on May 26, 1997. That is me in the photo at right, framed by a black rope.
To give you an idea of the enduring results from my executive coaching, here is a letter from a participant, reprinted with her permission, written more than a year and a half after she completed the course. Be sure to scroll down to see me at her wedding, one of the results she credits to the coaching.
November 9, 1998
Dear Tony,
I don’t know why it’s taken me so long to write you and tell you what’s been happening in my life since I took your course, “Genuine Success: Vitality, Service, and Outstanding Performance” (VSOP), in the summer of 1997, but here I am.
No, I want to correct that. My life has become very full. Also, I think I was avoiding (more…)
by Tony Mayo | For Business Owners
While driving home from a client’s office, I felt some strange symptoms. The kind of symptoms that could mean nothing or could be signs of impending death. The kind of symptoms you would feel foolish wasting the hospital’s time with or could burden your family permanently. What to do?
Luckily, I have a great relationship with a first-rate internist and his office was near the next highway exit. I didn’t go there directly, of course. I telephoned my wife to let her talk me out of being concerned. Instead, she met me at the doctor’s office.
My doctor immediately (more…)
by Tony Mayo | For Executive Coaches, Recommended Books
The 
renowned author of The Tao of Physics weaves a yet broader tapestry of reality in The Web of Life. Capra’s readable survey goes beyond quantum physics and eastern mystics to encompass biology, consciousness, and the ecology of the entire earth. From chaos and complexity science, through Heidegger and the Systems Thinkers, right up to the Gaia Theory, Capra explains in fascinating detail the key ideas of twentieth-century philosophers and scientists whose insights may be propelling all of us into the post-modern era.
The Web of Life:
A New Scientific Understanding of Living Systems
by Fritoj Capra
Selected excerpts from the book. [My comments in brackets.]
p. 6 A social paradigm, which I define as “a constellation of concepts, values, perceptions, and practices shared by a community, which forms a particular vision of reality that is the basis of the way the community organizes itself.”
The paradigm that is now receding has (more…)
by Tony Mayo | For Executive Coaches, How to Set Goals, Recommended Books
The Last Word on Power:
Re-Invention for Leaders and Anyone
Who Must Make the Impossible Happen
by Tracy Goss (Betty Sue Flowers, Editor)
Capsule Review
Tracy Goss has long been closely associated with Werner Erhard, the originator of EST and Landmark Education Corporation’s Forum. I expect happy graduates of those programs to be very happy with this book (I am and I am). The book presents the central concepts of those programs very clearly and in a format designed to help business people put the “distinctions” to work immediately. I doubt, however, that a person not trained in ontological coaching could get much sense from these pages. It can seem to be merely jargon and wild promises unless you have actually put the techniques to work for yourself with the assistance of a coach (as I have and I do).
For people experienced with the methods, this book is an effective refresher and spur to action. A friend and I (more…)
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