Prisoner 119104

Joachim De Posada

By Joachim De Posada

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Prisoner 119104

 

A gentleman I admired tremendously named Viktor Frankl lived to the young age of 92. Out of all those years he was fortunate to live, three of them were spent in a German concentration camp. Those years were practically stolen by the Nazis and as you all know my dear readers, time lost can’t be recovered.

 

As bad as that fact is, those lost years have no comparison to what the Nazis took away from Viktor and destroyed: His wonderful bride and unborn child, she was a few months pregnant, his mother and father, his brother and the manuscript of a book he had practically devoted his whole life to writing and didn’t have a copy.

 

How could a man that suffered so much choose victory over defeat in the midst of so much sadness, suffering, heartbreak and unimaginable emotions?

How could he chose not to be subjugated by his captors, how to win instead of lose?

 

How come he didn’t lose faith in mankind and hate his captors after what they had done to his family and were doing to him?

 

The answer to those questions and others I had are in a book written some time ago by Viktor Frankl, which I read and loved and which by the way, he wrote in nine successive days after he was liberated. In other words, the manuscript stolen from him by the Nazis which took him years to write, he wrote, adding this prison experience in just nine consecutive days.

 

That book, I am sure some of you have read, is titled: “Man’s Search for Meaning”

In the book and what I want to share with you today, he writes:

 

“Everything can be taken away from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms, to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way”.

 

That is a profound thought he shared with all of us.

 

Some people have lost their homes, their cars, their jobs in this recession, (depression if it hit you) that has practically affected the whole world including and severely Puerto Rico and the United States. 

 

The recession might have taken everything away from you and you might be reading this newspaper right now because you found it in a garbage can thrown away by someone that could afford to buy it, read it and throw it away.

 

You might have lost a lot and I sympathize with you my friend but compare it to what Viktor lost.

 

Is there a comparison?

 

I think it is safe to say that Viktor lost much more and he didn’t let his circumstances defeat him, he didn’t quit, he never gave up. He survived and not only survived but took notes on what was happening in the concentration camp in order to someday write a book about it.

 

In other words, he couldn’t die, he had to survive because he had to write that book to help us cope with circumstances that will definitely affect all of us sometime in our lives.

 

I wish that this article could be read by a dear friend named Richard who graduated from my High School, the Sacred Heart Academy in Santurce, same year than I did,  and who I was told was homeless asking for money in a red light somewhere in Rio Piedras.  Richard my friend, if Viktor Frankl did it, you can also. Reach out to me or to the dozens of your classmates that are still around and would surely give you a hand and some understanding.

 

I hope that anyone reading this article will learn such a valuable lesson Viktor Frankl taught all of us.

 

He endured humiliations even torture so that he could survive and he could send you this message, through my writing to you who I know are going through tough times.

 

Look for opportunities, reach out to family and friends, be creative and think on what you need to do in order to get out of the rut you are in today.

 

To those that are not going through tough times, lend a hand to someone that is.

Remember the ancient saying “He who holds a lantern to light the pathway of his brother sees more clearly his own”.

 

To finish this article, I remind you of the week that three important people in the world died a couple of days between them.

 

Lady Diana died on August 31, 1997. I remember well since I was in Europe on my honeymoon when it happened.

 

Viktor Frankl died on September 2^nd, 1997.

 

Mother Theresa died on September 5, 1997.

 

Some of you might remember who received the most attention, worldwide: Lady Di.

 

Not that I want to take anything away from her but I do think that Mother Theresa and Viktor Frankl deserved at least as much, if not more, recognition than her.

 

Sometimes our values and priorities are not in the exact order they should be.

 

 

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The Effect of Negative Words When You Communicate

Joachim De Posada

By Joachim De Posada

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The effect of negative words when you communicate

 

The art of communicating effectively is so important not only in business but also in your personal life.

There are some words that provoke a negative reaction just by hearing the word. When we hear those words in a conversation, we stop paying attention, the communicator loses credibility and you probably will discard everything else the person will try to communicate. These words when our brain hears them, prompt us to react defensively and sometimes aggressively by emotional people.

 

Studies have been conducted to identify some of those “trigger words” that bring out immediate and negative reactions from listeners.

 

As an example, the word “never” often elicits a bad reaction. Let’s analyze it: Do you remember the last time you were involved in a conversation either in business or in your personal life in which the word “never” was used in a happy context?

 

You go to work every day as most people do, you might arrive a few minutes late because of a traffic jam in Baldorioty de Castro and your boss says, “you are “never” on time. When you hear this, your brain will probably not elicit a rational and constructive word and the possibility of a positive dialogue is eliminated. You will probably go on the defensive, your adrenaline response will take over and you will try to bite your boss somehow, either by telling him that it is not true, accusing him of exaggerating or in some occasions waste your time in looking for situations where your boss is late or screws up. Your concentration goes away from doing good productive work to finding ways to screw the boss.

 

Let’s look at another word that most of the time elicits a negative reaction and I know you will be surprised when you read it: The word “always”.

 

If your boss, colleagues, family members constantly told you that you are “always” so smart, that you “always” help people in need, and you “always” are considerate and well educated, the word would certainly be a very positive word.

 

But, in reality, the word is very often used in negative ways. You are “always” complaining, you are “always” criticizing the company, you are “always” late for meetings, you are “always” sending emails with lots of mistakes or typos in it.

 

This word will then make you defensive and you will respond with:” You are wrong, I only complain when there is a reason to complain”, “no, I don’t criticize the company all the time, I only do it when there is a reason to criticize it” and “my emails only have typos when I use the damn I-Pad that self corrects and has a mind of its own”.

 

Think about it. Are there absolutes in life? 

 

How about always being compassionate?

 

Most of the time yes, but sometimes it will hurt the person. You are compassionate when you see a motorist stranded and you stop to help the person. You get mugged and he takes your car. In this case being compassionate was not a good thing, correct?

 

Let’s look at another one: Always be happy.

 

Do you think that always being happy is a good thing?

 

Some of my most creative work I have developed when I was very unhappy. That unhappiness made me react or act and do things that I would have never done if I had been happy.

 

My point is words like “never” and “always” are called “absolutes” and due to the fact that they have an emotional charge are very intense and preclude diplomacy or subtlety, they are not the best words to give feedback or start a constructive conversation.

 

A third word that could be very negative: “You”. Yes, don’t be surprised. That word could really be very negative.

 

Let’s say you are giving feedback to an employee who works for you and you use the word “you” in a menacing way.

 

“You have to stop being late” “You have to quit doing that”, “you need to stop being individualistic and work in a team”. And, if you use your index finger while using the word, it is a lot worse.

 

The word is so often used to attack and criticize and when people hear the word it consciously or unconsciously elicits a negative reaction when it is heard and it raises the levels of stress and tension.

 

The most effective way to communicate is to use better words, to use a style of communication known in the communications field as “fact based communication” which uses words that are as objective as possible, unemotional, timely and with a specific purpose which shouldn’t be to put the other person down or hurt his or her feelings.  

 

I hope that some politicians read this article. Some are so aggressive and use words that are so inappropriate that the public shuts them off and don’t even listen anymore.

 

 

Think about which words you use. There are many more that elicit negative responses; I only used three in this article. Get together with your coworkers or loved ones and find out which words you use that they dislike.

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Impulse Control: The Difference Between Success and Failure

Joachim De Posada

By Joachim De Posada

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IMPULSE CONTROL: THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN SUCCESS AND FAILURE

 

I have just finished a speech at the NASA Space Center in Port Canaveral for employees and executives. I was very pleased to have so many intelligent, creative people with an open mind, eagerly listening to any idea I could offer to make them more successful in their jobs and personal lives. I have so much to learn from them also.

 

As in many of my speeches, I discussed a very important principle that is very much required for anyone to succeed:  Impulse control.

 

There is perhaps no psychological skill more fundamental for human beings than resisting impulse.  It is the root of all emotional self-control, since all emotions, by their very nature lead to one or another impulse to act.

 

What is the meaning of the root word, emotion?  To move

The capacity to resist that impulse to act recklessly, to quash the initial movement is perhaps one of the most important factors involved in success.

 

A Stamford University psychologist, Walter Mischel said “goal directed, self imposed delay of gratification is perhaps the essence of emotional self regulation: the ability to deny impulse in the service of a goal, whether it be building a business, solving an algebraic equation, or pursuing the U.S.Open Tennis Championship”.

 

I was telling some of the members of my audience how important it was for them to understand this principle. I told them that I could be addressing tortilla salespeople in Mexico who are very poor, newspaper salespeople in Caracas who are also very poor or flower salespeople in Guayaquil who are definitely not known for their riches and the message would be the same I was giving them.

 

There is no short cut. Everyone has to pay the price and if you sacrifice now, you should be much better off in the future. In financial terms, a good practice for you to immediately put into practice is to save at least 10% of everything you make. 

 

I could be speaking to the tortilla salesperson in Mexico, not known for being rich, the newspaper salesperson selling papers in the railroad in Caracas or the flower salesperson in Guayaquil, Ecuador.

If you sell 10 tortillas in a day, you save the proceeds of one tortilla. Same with newspapers, or flowers, you sell 10 you save one.  In 30 years, you will be very well off, you will have money and you will live comfortably the rest of your life.

They were stunned. In essence, what I said is that even the poorest person, saving 10% of what they make, can become rich sometime in their lives.

 

I told them there was no excuse whatsoever for anyone to reach retirement age, and not have a nest egg that will carry you through the rest of their lives.  

 

I recounted one of  the stories in my book “How to Survive Among Piranhas” the story of Legson Kayira, a very, very poor man,  who walked from his tribal village in Nyasaland, north across the wilderness of East Africa to Cairo, where he boarded a ship to America to get a college education. He left on foot with a five day supply of food and no money. Two years later he arrived at Skagit Valley College to start his college education.

 

He said:  “I learned I was not, as most Africans believed, the victim of my circumstances but the master of them”.

 

Let’s analyze what he said. He said that you can become proactive and rise above your circumstances in order to achieve whatever you want to achieve in life. Most people accept their circumstances and never ever try to change them. That is the kiss of death.

 

There are a lot of people that have a problem with impulse control. For example, if you run out of money before the end of the week, you are not managing your money effectively. I sometimes ask in my sessions “how can I tell if you have problems with impulse control? Well, to begin with, when you see someone 100 pounds overweight, or smoking a cigarette, you know he or she has a problem with impulse control.

 

But, financially how would you identify someone with impulse control?

 

There is a definite answer. “We have to look at their assets”.

 

. Those that are right now out of money don’t have many valuable assets, who are living day to day, are always struggling, have had a problem with impulse control for a long time and the percentage of people in this situation unfortunately is very large.

 

There is some hope. First of all, pay off all your debts. Stop paying interest for money owed. Then, start saving 10% of everything you earn and in a few years you will see your savings grow and that will motivate you to continue saving and very soon you will have a good chunk of money saved up. 

 

This is the marshmallow principle, which I hold dear to my heart.

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Some years ago, the President of a client company was driving me to the airport, and he mentioned that what I said about impulse control was one of the most important lessons he had learned in his life. He proceeded to explain that when he was a young man he started working for an energy company and he had a boss that he got along with very well. 

The boss was an older fellow that had worked 35 years for the company.  He had a company car and a good salary. When he reached 65, by law, he had to leave the company. (I think this is absurd since at 65 an executive has 10, 20, even 30 good years ahead)  This gentleman told me that he was the one that had to accompany the boss to his house the last day of work.  When they got to his home and he stepped out of the car, he noticed the man was crying. He gave him the car keys and confessed to him that he had no money to buy a new car.  He was broke.

Imagine working 35 years for a company and reaching your retirement age with no money, not even enough to buy a car.  

That made such an impression on this company president, at such a young age, that he swore that this would not happen to him when he reached 65.  He started a savings program and has kept it to this day. This man is a rich man and he is in his mid- fifties.

 

Yes, many of us, me included, have had trouble with impulse control.  It is our psychological make up and sometimes the environment or our upbringing contributes to our inability to control our impulses. But it is never too late for us to start changing our behavior.  I learned my lesson a few years ago and I now have a good savings program.

 

What about you?

 

Can you afford to continue expending all your resources so that when you get to 65 you are like 90% of all people in the world, flat broke?

 

Those of you that are lucky enough to work for companies that have high regard for their employees and offer a 401 k and or a matching contribution program and financial advice and do not take advantage of this situation, can’t be forgiven.  What a waste if you are not taking advantage of that program. It is never too late to start saving.

 

Those of you that work for companies that do not have those programs, take responsibility and start your own savings program.

 

In our society, one of the richest in the world, there is no excuse for anyone to reach the golden age plain broke. Hey, if Legson made it, everyone can.

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