Leadership Lessons from Four Presidents: Part 1: Lincoln

Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer Doris Kearns Goodwin’s new book is Leadership: in turbulent times. It profiles Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, and Lyndon Johnson.

In this first installment of a four-part series in Psychology Today, I offer quotes from the book that address what made Lincoln successful. The subsequent installments will do the same for the other three.

The Easing Exhortation: Fad du jour

Perhaps in response to our ever more stressful life, there has been an easing movement.

Previously, self-help exhortations urged more drive, work ethic, doing the hard work needed for maximal achievement. But more recent urgings are to do less: slow down, breathe meditate, and change your mindset: Have a “growth mindset!” Think Positive.  “PowerPose!”  That continues even though rigorous attempts by independent researchers to validate such exhortations have largely failed to support the concept-creators’ puffy promise: Just follow my simple X-step plan and you can be fabulous.” Alas, we can’t all be fabulous. Posterity may well record this crop of fast-fix hawkers as modern-day snake-oil salesmen.

My PsychologyToday.com article today explains why the Easing Exhortation is a mere fad, which will end up taking its place among fads now ridiculed from phrenology to penis envy.

Not-Full Disclosure: Withholding and lying to helping professionals

All of us have not told all to our helping professionals. And sometimes with good reason. But my PsychologyToday.com article today should help you decide when it's wise to disclose, and if you're a helping professional, how to encourage disclosure.

Recovering from Big Mistakes: Career or relationship

We’re all subject to commitment bias. We commit to a career or spouse and understandably, it’s scary to change. It’s been said that the only person who likes change is a wet baby.

Sure, people change careers and people divorce, but at the risk of being contrarian, I don’t think they do it enough.

I make the case in my PsychologyToday.com article today and describe the low-risk baby steps you might take.
 

Beware Pop Psych Fast Fixes

Accepting your limitations is out of fashion. We all need hope that we can be excellent.

Indeed, many of the popular  pop psych gurus—excellent at selling—insist that you can be much better if only you follow their simple plan, for example, raise your expectations!  Reframe!  Have grit!  A growth mindset!  Power pose! Be fabulous!

Unfortunately, logically and empirically, such nostrums are longer on appeal than on real-world-significant results. In my PsychologyToday.com article today, I defend that assertion and describe approaches that are both more research-sound and reflect my experience with 5,500 clients.

Connect with me on LinkedIn What to Say in 9 More Ticklish Situations

In response to my recent post, What to Say in 16 Ticklish Situations,  a commenter asked me to write another post that said how I'd respond in nine other ticklish situations. Okay.

What to Say in 16 Ticklish Situations: Tips on difficult conversations

In ticklish situations., we often get nervous if not downright tongue-tied.
Of course, the right thing to say varies with the situation and protagonists but perhaps the examples I offer in my PsychologyToday.com article today can be instructive.

"Nemkoisms"

A students in the course on career counseling I’m teaching suggested I compile my “Nemkoisms” in a book. I don’t have enough to fill a book but perhaps there’s enough for an article. It's my PsychologyToday.com contribution today.

Contrarian Career Nuggets

I’m teaching a graduate course in career counseling. When I was a student, having remembered little from the mountains I was expected to read, I’m ruthlessly curating what I’m having my students read. For example, I'll be handing out a collection of contrarian ideas that have most helped my clients. It's my PsychologyToday.com article today.

A Type A's Guide to Life

Type-A people do everything fast, often intensely. It's routinely criticized.

The good news is that while it's extremely difficult for Type A's to become Type B's, making a few smart choices can result in Type A's having a great life. I describe them in my PsychologyToday.com article today.

Come See Me Tomorrow? I'm doing my show "Odd Man Out:

https://www.dailyrepublic.com/all-dr-news/solano-news/solano-county-entertainment/bay-area-stage-benefit-helps-theater-company-audience/

Bouncing Back: Real-world tested approaches

Some people find it easy to rebound from life’s slings and arrows. Much of that is because of intelligence: the ability to learn and problem-solve quickly in many contexts. Resilience is also a function of drive: Some people, from the womb, are more driven than others.

But what about people who aren’t driven brainiacs? My PsychologyToday.com article today offers tactics have helped such clients of mine bounce back from setbacks:

4 Approaches to Change: advice-offering, rational-emotive behavior therapy, motivational messages.

He can’t stop pigging out. She can’t stop worrying. He can’t stop his substance abuse.

Even good psychotherapists (and advertisers) have a hard time getting people to change. It’s been said that it takes six to nine exposures to an ad to get someone to change their brand of toilet paper!

So, there are no magic pills yet. Best we can do, in our own lives and in trying to shepherd others to change, is to have a toolkit of interventions to draw from.  My PsychologyToday.com article today describes four widely used ones.

Marty Nemko's Show Odd Man Out: We're All Less Impressive Than Our Facebook Profile

We're all less impressive than our Facebook profile. I tell all in story and song, with my wife popping up through the show to tell me when I'm full of it--with my doggie Einstein comforting me, in my show Odd Man Out. One performance only: A fundraiser for a very worthy cause: https://bit.ly/2Wx2gko

32 Powerful Influencing Words,,, and 10 that are overrated

Much has been written on the art of influence, but many of my clients find such advice too difficult to implement. 

They’ve had more success in trying to influence someone’s behavior or attitude by, where appropriate, using the 32 words I list in my PsychologyToday.com article today.
 

A Debate Between a Rationality-Centric and Feeling-Centric Person

Of course, it’s easy to compromise and say, “Well, I'll live my life incorporating both rationality and feeling." But we all fall somewhere on the continuum, perhaps unconsciously.

If you’d like to make a more conscious choice about it, perhaps my PsychologyToday.com article today in which I offer fictitious debate between a rationality-centric and a feeling-centric person may be helpful.

8 Not-Random Acts of Kindness

Random act of kindness rarely benefit you other than the good feeling of giving. For example, you put a quarter in the parking meter just before the meter maid is about to give a ticket.  It feels good but doesn't otherwise benefit you. My PsychologyToday.com article today offers 8 acts of kindness that are more likely to.

A Career Misconception

A new client came in with a common misconception: She insisted that the way to land a good job is for recruiters to tap your LinkedIn profile. (from among the 600 million!)

That strategy, like all job-search strategies will sometimes work, but it’s successful mostly when a candidate is currently well-employed doing similar work, for a very-low paying job, or for a job in high demand that requires a challenging skill set, for example, data scientist. This client fit none of those. In my PsychologyToday.com article today, I describe a likely more fruitful approach.