Copyright © 2010 Madanes-Peysha Publishing

RMT Teleclass Life Planning & Revising - Lise

Teleclass Transcript (4-05-11)

MP: MP Peysha
CM: Cloe Madanes
Ron
Oscar
Teresa

MP: Alright, welcome to everyone to the teleclass. Today, we are going to be doing
question and answers focusing on that and we are going to start with some questions that
we have that Cloe has written down that we received from you this week through e-mail.
Cloe, would you like to get started on that?

CM: Right. Okay. So here is a question. Once I worked with a lady through her
problems quite smoothly and the results were immediate and great. She loved it and I felt
like a million bucks, but mainly most of my practice sessions have been listening to
people's problems and having to really concentrate on them 100 percent. At the end of
this session or that night, I am exhausted. It is almost like I took on their negative
energies. Do you have any comments or advice? And this is from a man, John.

Okay, so I think that it's very important to make a plan of what you are going to do in a
coaching session, to make a plan ahead of time. When I first started in this business, I
would make a plan in writing, bring it with me, have it with me for the session and in the
middle I would excuse myself for a few minutes to look at my plan to see if I was staying
with it or I had been taken in other direction or we just look at the plan in front of the
people I was working with. It doesn't matter. They just see that you have thought about
them and that you are prepared. I would record all the sessions and then listen to the
recording and compare it to my plan, and then I would go around begging my colleagues
and friends to listen to this to tell me what they thought of my work. That's how
dedicated I was. That's what you have to do when you when you start off.

Milton Erickson used to write down his hypnotic inductions word by word and it could
be a hypnotic induction that might take an hour to deliver. Then he would memorize it
and deliver it to the patient, that's how dedicated he was. So it's important to have a plan
even if it's a first meeting or a first telephone call, you usually note something about the
person ahead of time. So you decide for example, “Okay, I am going to explore the six
human needs or I am going to explore whether they are in a crazy eight or I am going to
see how I can use the Elevation Strategy or what is the key decision that they might have
made long ago. So you have a plan. So then as you are listening to them, you can also

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take some notes because for a person they get the feeling that they are taking on negative
energy. I usually don't like to take notes because it distracts my concentration on the
person, but if you have a feeling that you are absorbing negative energy, then take notes
because the notes are line intermediary, you don't need to absorb everything because you
have it written down and it will help you with that. And then prepare for the next
meeting. Evaluate what you did, record the sessions, exactly what I have described so it
becomes a challenge or problem that you are going to solve, something interesting, not
just something that you are identifying with; and the reason that we are giving you this
mega strategies is because they are strategies that apply to almost any case and so you
can decide for each meeting what strategy you are going to use. Also it's really important
to have like a number of directives that you typically use, that you could even list on a
piece of paper your favorite directives and know that each time you are going to give at
least one directive and it could be a very small thing that the person is going to do or it
could be something more major, but you are going to get some directive and then the next
time you are going to ask about how they did with that directive. So it gives you things
to do that are not just listening, that are effective and it keeps you from absorbing
negative energy because you are concentrating on the interesting problem, not necessarily
on the energy of the person.

MP: Yeah. That's great. That's great. So I mean you do want to have a plan and you
want to understand what the target is for the person. So we do want to have an outcome
that we are working towards so we don't get stuck in processing.

CM: Yeah. Yes, thanks. I forgot that you have to understand what’s the challenge that
they want to overcome and then you want to know how will they know when they
overcome the challenge.

MP: Yeah and this is a great question but it touches on something that lot of people
have asked when they watched Tony work and it is that he is doing so many pattern
interrupts all the time, people say, “Well, do I have to be interrupting the person and
managing things out all the time” and we usually say, “No, you don't have to. You don't
have to feel like you have to move as fast as Tony, for instance. However, there is the
other extreme where sometimes you will meet someone and they want to deliver a whole
long story to you in a piece and it's almost like they want to deliver to you and you just
have to listen, your job is to be like a traditional therapist where you just like, “Uhumm,
uhumm?, and in that case you can develop skillful ways of interrupting the pattern in
small ways so that you keep it at the dialogue. I think it is important that you don't get
bored or that you don't feel so imposed upon that you lose track of your thoughts because
the person is so stuck on saying one story in one piece without any interaction. So it is
nice to be able to ask, and this is not about pattern interrupts like in the sense of being
rude or things like that. You are just asking questions. Ask them small questions. Ask
them a question that will bring a little contrast into the situation.

So you will have someone like say, Tony, just to give one example that made an
impression on me, if you haven't seen the Jim film yet. But this is a man who was
suicidal and he was talking about all difficulties and then Tony had known from his card

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that Jim raced motorcycles, so in the middle of him saying it, Tony says, “So you race
motorbikes?” and the guy goes, “Yeah” and it's like the person completely changes their
emotion. So there are small things you can do, you can ask them, “So how did that make
you feel?” or you could say, “Really?” and express surprise at some of the things they
say, “Tell me a little bit more about that” and in small ways manage the direction of the
conversation a little bit so it's interactive because if the person is just laying out of story,
and of course there is a balance here, they are laying out of story for like 10, 15 minutes
where you feel like you don't get an opportunity to direct the conversation in a way that it
will help you within the session, then you need to find small ways to modify the
conversation and redirect it. Does that make sense? And I think that will help you feel
like you are on your feet in the conversation rather than just having absorbed what the
other person has.

CM: Yes, yes. But for most people, it’s really important for them to feel that you are
actually listening, that you are making an effort to understand them, and part of
understanding is asking for clarification or part of understanding could also be
disagreeing. For example, I was just talking on the phone with a man who was
consulting with me about his marriage and so he gave me a speech, a pretty long speech
about a seminar that he had gone to where this presenter was saying that for a marriage to
improve it takes effort on both people's part and both people should make equal effort
and he went on and on about this and I said, “Excuse me, I need to interrupt you because
that man was wrong. For a marriage to change it takes only one person to change it.”
And he said, “What?” and it took a while for him to understand the concept and then he
called me back and said, “Okay, I got it. I am going to change.” So that was a huge
intervention and it came just from disagreeing on the belief that he had. So that's part of
understanding. Does that make sense?

MP: Yeah, absolutely. So when I talk about pattern interrupts, I am not talking about
anything trivial or distracting but you can ask, you can say, “I don't know get that at all.
Can you explain that?” or “I am totally surprised that you would say that. It seems to me
to be the opposite.” Then the person needs to double back, reconsider that you may have
a different perspective and explain more and then that way you are having a part in the
information that's being brought out while you also like you say, the person does need to
feel like you are not only understanding but you are also making effort to understand as
well.

CM: Yes and also you have to understand, Mark, when you were describing how many
pattern interrupts Tony uses during an intervention, he is entertaining the audience at the
same time that he is talking to an individual or a couple. When Tony works in a room
with a couple or family or an individual, he listens patiently for hours. He is not
constantly doing pattern interrupts. Isn’t that true, Mark?

MP: Yes, but I would also say that if the person has got a certain emotion that they are
bringing to it constantly, like if the person has got well-rehearsed disappointment or
frustration then he will interject in small ways that inject his emotion into the
conversation like that, “It will be okay," “That surprises me. I am really curious about

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that," and so that way he is having his input into it. So while he is still drawing out the
information, it's not like one of those situations where the person throws a wet blanket on
it and he can't move or lift or speak, and I think sometimes people get in that situation
because you want to be considerate when someone is telling something that's difficult for
them or that's traumatic and you have to remember that also it's good for you to be able to
have some input into that story, even asking for more clarification so that you don't feel
trapped and you are able to kind of put your piece into it as well.

CM: Okay, shall I move on to the next?

MP: Sure, sure.

CM: “My husband's lack of career success interferes in our relationship as he has never
had any success in this area. It seems he chooses things that don't work out. It's been
fifteen years and it weighs heavily on our relationship and family. He is always having
ideas but they end up just costing, not making any money. I live in hope that he will find
his own way but he seems to enjoy being lost.”

Well, I don't know that that I would call it being lost because from what you say it seems
that he works and he is interested in succeeding and has not been successful apparently
but has been trying many different things. I think that you might want to, at this point in
the marriage, tell him that you want to collaborate with him and you want to do
something that both of you can make it work out together. Maybe there are some skills
that you have that are complimentary to his and maybe it would take your input to make
it successful. I don't know other than the coaching and studying the coaching program
what you do, but I would set aside a good portion of your time to help him make a
success but not do it in a way that you take away his significance. On the contrary, just
do it like he is so imaginative and creative and he has such good ideas and you are just
more of a detailed kind of person that is more focused on small steps. What do you think,
Mark?

MP: What I would ask if you are on the call then let me know, but I would want to
know what [unintelligible 0:13:54] he is working with that are not working out because I
think there is a whole industry that's based on giving people false hopes of income from
one thing or another and there are people who repeatedly fall prey to the messages that
are, “You can make this," “You can get this” and I am very critical of that bad industry.
So I would say with a caveat here that if it seems like one of those situations where --
what I tell people with any of those situations that when they tell you, when they promise
you that you going to get an income from home or you are going to make a fortune, or
you going to make a million dollars, you have to always think, where am I adding
meaningful value to the system and we can talk about this to off this call if you want, but
I would say if it is one of the things where you are paying for information that's supposed
to make you rich and then it's not working, then you may really want to focus on
something that is more about career or more of an established past and I think with that in
mind Cloe’s advice is just right. You do have to be careful about the information that
you get these days.

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CM: Yeah. Okay, so here is another one: “I understand that Tony is well-versed in
hypnosis. Can you please explain how he does use hypnosis in these interventions?

And what Tony does is indirect hypnosis in the style of Milton Erickson and the style of
NLP and he has a great ability to influence people indirectly in this way. All that
hypnosis is, is interpersonal influence where the hypnotist creates a very strong focus of
attention for the subject; and so as the subject enters this very concentrated focus of
attention, they go into an altered state, they go into a mental altered state where they
become more open or more vulnerable to incorporate the suggestion or to follow a
suggestion. So for example, when Tony does a visualization it is considered as
visualization but it is also a hypnotic process because if you follow the visualization you
become so involved in what's happening, in his words, in expression and what you are
feeling and what you remember and what you are visualizing that it creates an altered
state. For example, in the Elevation Strategy, you can see very clearly that the hypnotic
procedure there when Greg says, you remember Dana and Greg, Greg was the man with a
sexual problem, you see him going deeper and deeper and into a trance as he goes deeper
and deeper into what his original intention was. Sometimes, the hypnotic process starts
right away with a strong impact. So when Tony does something egregious, you
immediately feel you are paying a special attention, this is like you go into an altered
state because you didn't expect for him to say this; all of a sudden when he shouts in a
very strong voice or when he shifts and he is very quiet and calm, all those are hypnotic
techniques to focus your attention so you become more open and more likely to follow a
suggestion or directive when he gives it.

MP: Yeah, I agree.

CM: The use of metaphor is another way of using hypnosis. I never use direct
hypnosis, but I use a lot of indirect techniques and it's interesting with children, I have
used this a lot with children a long time ago when I worked in a child guidance clinic and
children’s hospital and so on; and So for example, the child, because children play all the
time and they pretend all the time, they play pretend games, it's so easy to put them in a
trance because all that a trance is just a pretend. So for example, in the children's hospital
when a child has a pain that doesn't go away, a simple hypnotic technique is to say to the
child, “You like to watch television?” "Yeah." “So what's your favorite TV show?”
"The Incredible Hulk," let's say, or "Bugs Bunny" or something like that and, “You can
change channels on the TV, right?” And the child says, "Yes."

[Unintelligible 0:19:23] with your body, you can change where things are also. So let's
think that you have the control panels of the TV in the back of your neck and your pain is
in your right arm now, right? Okay, so touch the control and move the pain slowly up
your neck down the other arm and now it's in the other arm, and say, “Do you feel it?”
Yeah, there it is in the other arm. Now, let's move it to your leg slowly. You can also
use the computer metaphor and say move the mouse, click on to thing and drag it slowly
to the leg and there it's in the leg and there you click the mouse and you will move again.
Now, it's down the other leg. Now, let's have it go away. Its’ going to go to the floor

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now, click the mouse and we will drag it on the floor and the pain goes away. So it’s all
a game.

MP: Yeah, absolutely. So when hypnosis is sometimes talked about like it's one solid
thing and really hypnosis is the kind of a descriptive way of describing certain kind of
focus, a variety of different kinds of focus. Milton Erickson who revolutionized
hypnosis, he revolutionized it by making it a conversational thing that people can be in a
light trance at any point in any conversation and that's the kind of how Tony uses it most
of the time unless he is really drawing attention to creating a new pattern. However, he
will notice sometimes if a person's focus is shifted and has gone into a little bit of a
trance, and I think very often it happens when people have a focus that they weren't
expecting or they have an experience that they weren't expecting, they kind of space out a
little bit, and then when that happens he will be alert to that and he will basically give
them more messages that are conducive to change. So he maybe in the middle of the
conversation and notices that the person is on doubt a little bit, and in that moment he
will softly tell the person, “Let me talk about things in a way that will move him forward
in the intervention.” Does that make sense?

CM: Yes, absolutely. And we put ourselves in a trance all the time, trance is just an
altered state of consciousness or a different kind of focus of attention, that's all that it is;
and if you want to practice, you can play a certain type of music and you will notice how
you can go so easily into an altered state or you look at a beautiful view for example and
that alters your state of consciousness.

MP: And so in a way you could look at trance as a moment or a couple of minutes
some time that the conscious kind of relaxes so the unconscious can figure things out for
you. Sometimes people often just take a moment like that one when he needs it. He is
talking about something and the person will be, “I am not ready for this," then they relax
for a second and they have assimilated it.

CM: Right, and another thing that Milton Erickson introduced is the idea of a hypnotic
state is a pleasurable thing and that you can learn to bring it on yourself and experience a
sensation of peace and well-being and quiet. So it's interesting to practice on yourself
with it.

MP: I have actually seen Tony soften his focus sometimes during an intervention. He
will go totally relaxed for a little bit and you can see that he is letting soak in what he
needs to learn in that moment.

CM: Okay, here is another one. “Why are the six human needs portrayed as concentric
circles?

That's a good question.

MP: Good question. I really think of it that way. I think the target metaphor is really
useful for some people to think of something being in the center. I know that in the

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workshops where Tony developed the concentric circle model where he is usually
helping people to focus on love and contribution and growth rather than the others.

CM: And I think it's similar to my stages, the emotional and spiritual development, in
the sense that he puts in the center smaller the need for certainty, then he has certainty
than he has significance and love and financial. So the outer parts of the circle are love,
connection, growth and contribution which not everybody is able to reach or to
accomplish.

MP: I usually think of them at a list of six as numerical list.

CM: Yeah, I think of them like that also.

MP: Yeah, and I see that the most people who got the first four in a different
configuration and you need to figure out and then growth and contribution most people
are focusing on and then that needs to be brought in with more emphasis.

CM: Okay. So here is a difficult one. “I have a female friend recently divorced with
as yet no settlement. There are three adult children living independently. The ex-
husband is delaying the settlement out of what appears to me to be vindictiveness and
because he can. This is preventing my friend from moving on and creating a positive
new life for herself. There is real state involved but she is ready to settle for anything just
so she can have closure, but he still wants to play games. I am at a loss as to how to
make any constructive suggestion about what she can do or how she might act to gain
even some progress toward resolving this situation. What do you suggest, Cloe?”

I don't know because in these situations there are usually lawyers and there have to be
lawyers and probably ones that are going to make the most money from this situation are
the lawyers. So I don't think it's a good idea for her to settle for anything so she can have
closure. I would discourage her from that because every woman that I have known that
has done that has been sorry later because they felt that they were basically robbed and
they didn't have the strength to fight for what was legally theirs. I would get a more
aggressive lawyer, that's what I would recommend you.

MP: Get a very smart aggressive lawyer and then just entrust that they are going to do
the parts that are hard for you, let them do those parts. I think it is useful sometimes for
people to get, I mean, if one had a friend of the ex-husband or the husband to point out
how the numbers usually work out. Usually what happens in this situation is that the
lawyers are very skilled at making the case seem bigger than it is and that the winnings
will be much better than they are and then they underestimate the cost of time and
expense to resolve the situation. So someone could make that sense to him; but
otherwise, you don't want to just give up because – I know it's very stressful but it's
stressful but it is stressful because you are resolving important property issues and things
like that.

CM: Okay, so this one is from a man. “I have been struggling in the area of my career.

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I am about to turn thirty and I am starting a coaching career and I am nervous about my
ability to thrive. I have been considering graduate school as a safe option but it would be
expensive and I fear obtaining an expensive degree and then not enjoying the career it
would afford. I am excited and I feel I may enjoy and excel at many different options. I
have a pattern in my life of starting things with enthusiasm and then backing off when I
realize what other options that I may have to sacrifice. This makes me feel a bit like a
dabbler, that I am not accomplishing what I want and need to. Do you have any advice
so that I may step into this life stage powerfully and stick with the decision? I feel that I
am entering a time in my life where I need to become much more powerful financially so
that I may be in a position to start a family or at least be able to support others in this
way. And what point is being a jack of all trades hurts us and when can it be beneficial?

Well, I think that what you have offered us here is that we will never let you quit this
training. You are going to stick with us and become a coach and be a successful coach
absolutely, right, Mark?

MP: That's right. You have to send your e-mail and we are going to put you on the
hook now.

CM: Right, absolutely. We will be watching you. You better do all the homework. I
am serious.

MP: Yeah, sometimes you have to burn the boat to save the Island.

CM: I know. We put a lot of work into this training and we don't want to have
somebody just dabbling in it.

MP: Yeah. No, I understand that people dabble in their twenties and actually college
teaches us to dabble in a certain way. There is certain educational thing they tell is, “Oh,
you shouldn't really commit too quickly. You should experiment. You should try all
sorts of things.” But then in terms of life stages, often I find that many people find that
30s is like a big battle. When you are in your 30's and you are in your career, that's when
you are fighting to get from being an apprentice in a position to the point where you
going to have some power in your voice and then in your 50's you can have some more
comfort. So the clock does not running in a certain extent. This is obviously not the
same for everyone; but if you are turning 30 right now and you are thinking that you need
put yourself into a more powerful position, that is it and I think if you have had -- I don't
know, but if you have had patterns in your 20's where there was a lot of quest for variety
and very often when you learn a new skill, you learn it, it’s very exciting and then you
plateau, and at that plateau it's like you just gotten past the part that was exciting, you are
not at the point where you can really deliver value to other people yet and so you need to
get yourself pass that plateau where you get it , you are excited but then you get to the
point where, “When am I able to pass on value to other people with this?” and that should
be your target that you shoot for. You don’t relax until you can start doing that and it
should be pretty quick. I mean, with coaching, just take the program and you can do it.
And the other thing is, graduate school, I don't know specifically but these days there is

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no guarantee to getting a job out of graduate school. There is a lot of people in school
coming out and it’s an economy where creating your own work as a coach for yourself is
a good idea. Cloe?

CM: Yes. Okay, so here is another one. “Tony often encourages men to nurture their
masculine energy by taking up a martial art or sport. How can I encourage men who are
limited physically by pain, illness or injury to do the same? What are some ideas for
helping such men to feel their masculine power in the midst of illness or injury?

Apparently, you haven't seen the breakthrough show by Tony, the TV show where he
takes a quadriplegic and has him drive a speed car in the desert and jumping off an
airplane and playing a kind of, what is it called. Killer ball or something like that like a
kind of.

MP: Murder ball. It's a wheelchair sport (unintelligible 32:23.8).

CM: It's a wheelchair game that is like basketball, right? So Tony has these people do
extraordinary things. In another show, he has this very obese man and he puts him
through boot camp and with a military with the real military. So you can do a lot. You
can encourage people with pain and injuries. There is always something that can be
done. Also if the person is completely incapacitated, and I can't imagine anybody more
incapacitated than a quadriplegic, but still if you feel that there is nothing or there is not
the resources, then you help them to develop their mind in a masculine way with
masculine energy. For example, to become a great chess player or a great military
strategist even if they will never be in the military, something that exercises the mind.

MP: Yeah. I think when Tony talks about fostering your masculinity, it's usually in an
intervention and usually in the intervention there is a very specific target, a very specific
outcome. So I would give different advice if there was a masculine energy in relation to
a relationship or maybe the man is not showing up enough or he is timid or he gets angry
too quickly or whatever it may be. So in that case, Tony's exercises on encouraging
presents in men would be really good and he actually does that with a quadriplegic in the
breakthrough show. I am trying to think of that up somewhere. It will be up in our next
training but he basically helps the man have more heart and more strength with his wife
when she feels desperate, even though he is the cause of what is frustrating her as so
often because it's so difficult to take care of him, but he is able to be there and be very
present and keep that strong bond of compassion with her and that was a masculinity in
that case. So it’s really about what you have to think about what you want as the
outcome for the person when you use masculinity. The other thing is obviously exercise
is good in a general sense and if someone doesn't have all their limbs or something, then
give them barbells or dumb bells for the limbs that do work so they can do localized
exercise. I think that's really good for that person to at least get that sensation of working
out those muscles that they do have control over.

CM: Okay. There is another question that I am just going to summarize. If somebody
is thinking of going back to school for a social work degree or something similar but

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doesn't like the medical model or the diagnostic model, is there any way of getting a
graduate degree that is in the mental health field but without the medical model?

You know, I really don't think that there is. I haven't stayed on top of it. University of
Maryland, the Department of Family Therapy at University of Maryland, I used to teach
there and basically was not a medical model. The University of Miami also used to be
good in that way, but I have been out of touch for a long time and all the people that I
meet these days are all about the diagnosis and is like going back to pre-Freud times,
even Freud was an advance over the model that is being used now where everything is
biological and everything is illness and pathologies; it's really quit pathetic.

Alright, so we take live questions?

MP: Yeah, live questions. Press star 2 to ask your questions. There is a couple that
was typed in here that I can read while we are waiting for this to come up. Star 2 just put
in your keypad.

“I am doing team coaching," this is from Lea. “How can I give them a system to improve
communication?”

Would use the six human needs; I was using Enneagram, any link between this systems,
any rating recommended. So this is for sport teams.

CM: Yeah any links between what and what?

MP: Enneagram and six human needs.

CM: Oh, I represented this in Israel and as an expert in the Enneagram. I am going to
e-mail Lea and Ezekiel and you can communicate directly with each other because he has
adopted the six human needs to the Enneagram and he has a whole thing about it. It's
really interesting. Now he just adopted the crazy eight also to the Enneagram.

MP: What kind of sports team it is; if you are on, if you can just fill that in?

CM: I have a feeling that it's something similar to rugby because I talked with Lea on
the phone about it.

MP: Okay, okay, okay.

CM: And so these are young men where it's very important to create that very strong
team feelings. I think that the Elevation Strategy used in a group would be very
interesting to find the positive intent that they all share in common and break down then
the steps to get to their highest intent.

MP: Yeah. I think the other pieces of that are good -- I mean that Enneagram is used
as very effective if you want to help people associate and understand different traits in

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each other and different roles that they might play. So it would make the difference
between someone who tends to be a leader versus someone who tends to be a supporter
versus someone who tends to be a connector, you know, things like that and that's a good
way. I guess the question is whether we are talking about people improving their
communication on the field or off the field. On the field, I think it's a really cool exercise
for sports is when in any kind of ball sport, when you have a group that has to be in
coordination with each other is that you them used an imaginary ball, you have them play
by using an imaginary ball and it forces everyone to be slow and very responsive to each
other because you are passing around a ball that doesn't exist. So if the person throws an
imaginary ball, you have to go where it would be then you need to hold it where it would
be and the other people need to -- it makes people pay attention to each other rather than
the ball. So it's an exercise you can do with passing and then you can get more advanced
if you need to, actually doing plays where three people passing it or whatever it may be.
And then the other, the management team -- okay, completely different, management
team, Cloe.

CM: Oh, she's talking about the management team.

MP: Lea, let us know, let's see.

CM: Oh, yeah, I confused Leah with somebody else that is coaching a sport team. I am
so sorry, I confused her with Natasha. I don't know why Natasha and Leah are such
different names. Alright, you can -- it would be fun to do the passing the imaginary ball
with the management team also. Absolutely.

MP: The piece that Tony has liked and I like as well is spiral dynamics and we will
teach a module on that. Spiral dynamics was developed by a man named Clare Graves.
These are kind of topologies in the sense that people understand what levels they are at or
what role they play, and I don't know, I think it's too long a topic to get into right now;
but it's a system that, for instance, Nelson Mandela used when he took over in South
Africa and there was such a polarization between Black and White; he used the topology
which helps people understand how they approach different situations and problems and
these were also color coded so you could be a blue, an orange, or a red, or a green, or a
purple, in terms of the type of the way that you approach situations and that enabled the
Blacks and Whites to all be -- you know, you might be Black or you might be White, but
you are a white purple, so you could be with the purples which was composed of Blacks
and Whites or you are the greens which was composed of both Blacks and Whites. It
helps them break it up. So that's one way to understand the different roles that people
play in teams. I think the strength is a really good thing also for that reason because
when you are working with a team and it's important for everyone to identify the
strengths that they have and especially if someone has got a strength that maybe stronger
than yours that you can then learn to depend on it. So that will be another thing. There is
a book by the Strengths Finder folks; I think it's a leadership book, I can't remember the
exact title but it teaches you once you understand the strengths of different people on
your team then how do you lead someone with that strengths. So if you have someone
with strategic, what do they have to watch out or what are their strengths, what are their

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possible weakness or vulnerability, and then how do you lead someone with strategic, for
instance. That’s a good thing to do. This is like a day-long topic probably.

CM: Right. Okay. Do we have somebody live or written?

MP: Yeah we have live. Okay you are? Hey there. I don't see your phone number, so
you might be a Skype person?

Ron: Hey Mark.

MP: Hey Ron.

Ron: Hey, how are you? Hi Cloe.

CM: Hi.

MP: We are great.

Ron: I thought first it will be a session about Lisa film but I have a question about a key
decision and I heard a lot teleclass that is recorded and you said that about the fifth piece
to understanding a key decision. That the fifth piece is understanding the consequences
and then you said that we are talking about what your understanding is and I didn't
understand if you mean for the point of view of the intervention or for the client?

MP: Okay. So to review a little bit and we are going -- because we are having a lot of
questions and we are focusing on the questions that are answered but this is a great --
anyone has questions about the Lisa film or the teleclass, it's great to ask a question. So
just a recap quickly, there are five things, when we talked about understanding a key
decision in someone’s life, there were five things that we said that are important for that
person and the interventionist to understand. The first is the circumstances under which a
key decision was made. The second is understanding the dilemma that had caused the
need for the key decision and what the real intention was of the person who made the
decision. The third was to introduce a counter example of another decision that could
have been made for this to understand the gains that have been made due to that decision,
the positives and the [unintelligible 0:44:56] was to understand the consequences that
were made because of that decision. So in the case of Lisa, for instance, four would be
understanding that because of her decision she was a strong person dedicated to justice
and protecting and so forth and that the consequences were that she had to shut down her
femininity and she made it wrong.

CM: Yes. More directly as an answer to Ron's question, it’s the coach that has to
understand this and also the client. So when you see it, you explain it to the client. So
then you say to the client, “So you became strong in order to resist your father, but the
negative consequence of that was that you lost your femininity.” So you understand it
first and then you explain it to the client.

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Ron: So you gave there an example of a woman that had temporary insane. So in this
story you actually came and told her about that but then you talked to the husband only,
you didn't talk to her that’s all.

CM: Yes, when you are working with a couple; Tony with Lisa had only her. I had the
couple. So then immediately the husband said to me, “What did you do about temporary
insanity?” and I said, “Well, you have to help her. You are the only person that can help
her heal.” So I switched him from a position where he was punitive; he wanted to punish
her. I switched him to understanding her pain, her suffering and how he was a person
that loves her most and that had to help her.

Ron: I see.

CM: That's the advantage when you are working with more than one person; instead
you can have help there.

Ron: Okay.

MP: And the example, the reason that was being given Ron is that we talk about
counter example which is the importance of being able to create counter examples for
people. So when someone thinks people tend to be -- like a great example of a counter
example is the story we told sometime back where Cloe was helping the guy who
couldn't find a job and he was suicidal and then she said, “You know, when I was young
then getting a job was a bad thing and that we called getting a job the rat race. Why
would you be so upset; why would you get suicidal about not having a job?” So that was
a counter example that she was able to give him that completely changed his focus. So
that was the example. The reason that Cloe was talking about that in terms of temporary
insanity, she reframed the situation so much with as totally different counter example.

CM: So instead of her being an unfaithful woman who was immoral, she was just sick
with grief for her brother which is something that everybody can have compassions for.

Ron: Okay. Okay, that's all.

CM: Alright. Thank you. Good question.

Ron: I have another question. It's about someone who is a friend of my parents and he
had a combat fatigue which happened to him about 35 years ago in one of the combats
that he was and I talked with him a bit about it and he said that it started to happen about
a week after they were hit with bombardments and he was in tank and for twenty minutes
they were hitting and getting bombardment and then there are forty minutes stop and it
goes like a week; and after a week, he [unintelligible 0:49:10] combat fatigue which got
him to the point where he [unintelligible 0:49:15] moods orientation and he remembered
what happened there and he gets back to a shock. So when I saw the Lisa film and all of
those key decisions, I just started to realize that this is actually connected to a key
decision like when he get back to survival moment when it was there for a long time so or

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maybe short time he couldn‘t handle it, but after a week of that happened, he got so much
uncertainty situations that he actually made a key decision. So I am really interested in
about how can I…

CM: Excuse me, excuse me I could not understand you. That he made a key decision
to what?

Ron: Yeah. I tried to understand if he just made a key decision to shut himself up so he
will be able to break out from the fear and the uncertainty. So I just want to realize how
can I attack this kind of a problem and then break off like one-ear explosion sometimes,
and even if it's firecrackers and those things, he gets back inside this mode. So I tried to
understand how I can fight this.

CM: Yes, what are the emotions that he experiences when he's in a shock like that?

Ron: He is always shaking; he is remembering everything that happened there.

CM: It could be fear but it could also be guilt. It could be sadness.

Ron: That I don't know.

CM: You have to find that out and then talk to us again; I would like to help you with
that. Also you have to figure out does this keep him from service? Is he considered
disabled because of these?

Ron: Yes, he is.

CM: Okay, so he has a huge secondary gain from that then.

Ron: Yes, and he gained for all of his life.

CM: That's right, that’s right and he may feel guilty about having that gain. You have
to talk about that also. He may feel guilty because all his other friends are still fighting
wars and he is not.

Ron: I am not sure of that because he is quite old now. He is around 60.

CM: Okay, he could feel guilty about the past.

Ron: Yeah, that maybe so; but it be somehow the key decision that were made back
then to be in this state?

CM: Yes, connected to that and that was a key decision that protected him and helped
him then but now it’s obsolete. What is he gaining from it now? Nothing. He is even
too old to fight anymore.

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Ron: Yeah. It has even brought to a point that he lost his marriage mainly because of
that few years ago.

MP: He lost his what? I didn't hear.

CM: The marriage.

Ron: He got divorced. Most of the things are because what he reacts when it happens.

CM: And also find out whether he was in conflict with other soldiers or with his
superiors, whether he has failed that he let people down because he went into this panic
stage? Did somebody died because he didn't do what he was supposed to do? You have
to find out all those things.

Ron: Okay.

CM: Alright. I would like to tell that the question is about this. Mark, if you don't
mind, I would like to tell a brief story about one of the best interventions that I ever made
and it was in Israel.

MP: Great.

CM: Can I tell it?

MP: Yeah, absolutely. Go for it.

CM: Okay, I was quite young and I was married to Jay Hayley who already was a very
famous therapist, much older than me and we were visiting Israel. We were at the King
David Hotel in Jerusalem and there came a message for my husband saying that the
psychologist in charge of mental health for the whole Israel military needed to consult
with him about something. My husband was a little bit arrogant. So he responded that
we would be having dinner at the King David and he could join us for dinner, and we
were with our two little girls. Now in retrospect when I think of that, that was really not
very respectful but that’s what we did. So we were sitting there for dinner and this
person with a lot of medals and decorations comes to the table and sits with us and he
explains to my husband, it was just after the invasion of Lebanon where Israel lost many,
many soldiers, and he explains to my husband that there was a series of generals that had
gone into a deep very dangerous depression where they were basically suicidal because
they felt that they had lost so many lives because of their incompetence. They had made
so many mistakes in the field and my husband was saying, “That's terrible, yes. And,
well, it’s a serious situation. I don't know what to do.” And I couldn't resist, I said
“Excuse me but I would like to say something if you don't mind. I would like to give you
my opinion.”

So I asked my husband first if I could interrupt and he said, “Of course.” And the
psychologist said, “Yes, go ahead.” And I said, "You have to tell these generals that

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death is easy, suicide is easy, that's an easy way out. It's painless. What they have to do
now because they made those mistakes and accept that it was their fault, if they are
guilty, their mistakes, don't argue with that, just say that because they made those
mistakes and they lost so many lives, now they have to dedicate their entire life to
helping the widows and the orphans that were left behind and so now they have to make
sure that the families of all those people that died are well taken care of, that all the
children got good education, that everybody is fine and honor the memory of the dead
person."

And the guy said, “That's a good idea.” And he left and I didn't hear anything; and a
couple of years later we gathered at my institute in Washington DC, we had a three
Israeli students that came to study with us and I was talking about this and I was saying,
“I wonder whether what happened, if they did it.” And one of them is a professor at the
University of Jerusalem and she said, “I know. I know this and they did it. They did
exactly what you said and all the generals were fine. They came out of their depressions,
nobody attempted suicide and they took care of all those families.” So again, this goes to
prove that contribution is the best remedy for these kinds of things. The best remedy for
guilt and depression is contribution.

MP: Yeah. It makes sense.

CM: Yes. Yeah, alright.

Ron: It makes sense. It's like they are giving back to the people that they thought that
they let go. So now they have risen to live and they help them as well.

CM: Exactly, exactly. When you do an intervention like that, it's important not to
argue about the guilt. So I emphasized that very much. Don't make excuses for them.
Just say, “Yes, you are guilty. You made the mistakes. You were stupid and now you
can not die. That would be too easy. Now, you have to take care of all these people”.
That’s the way to do the intervention because if you argue with them that they are not
really guilty, they love to argue about that. You can’t argue about that.

MP: The thing about what happened is that he made a key decision under great duress,
one of the most stressful situations that could possibly be and you want to understand that
situation he was in and that what's crucial here is to understand the meaning that he
created during that decision and also to recover the real intent he had. I mean he was in
life or death, about as scary as the decision is, and he wanted to recover the intention; and
when people have guilt, it's because they feel like they don't have an opportunity to
recover the intention from something. So for instance, with the generals, they may have
also done their best under a very difficult decision but ended up being costing lives. So
what you need to do is give them a chance to recover their good intention. That will give
them continuity from the time they made the mistake all the way to now and they can
make up for that time. What's very difficult is when people feel like, “It's too late. I can
never get it back. I can never do it again. I will never know if I really meant well or
not.” Well, you can always prove that you meant well by doing something good now.

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Does that make sense?

CM: Yeah.

Ron: Yeah perfectly.

CM: Alright. Well, thank you. Very interesting question. Thank you.

MP: Great. Thank you. Okay we have 305 area code.

Oscar: Yes Mark. How are you?

MP: Good. How are you?

Oscar: Hello Cloe. I want to commend you guys. I am not interested in get into the
coaching profession. I was using it to basically communicate with my employees. I run
a hospital basically with fifteen hundred people. Recently, I got to use my skills learned
here because my in-laws were threatening divorce upon each after forty-five years of
marriage; and using some of the techniques I learned herein, I was able to resolve the
issues and get them together at least talking and working things through. In a matter of
three-four weeks, they are like newlyweds and much to my -- I guess paying attention did
help.

CM: Wonderful.

Oscar: I [unintelligible 1:00:51] through as far as the skills you are teaching. Now, I
have a situation now where a family member basically she lost her husband several years
ago; her adolescent child, well not adolescent anymore, he is nineteen years old, basically
left the household under dire situations. She basically gave him an ultimatum, “You live
by my rules or get out.” And he got out. Well, recently, he got arrested and he is back at
home but very defiant. Now, here is my situation. My situation is I just married into this
family; the other brother-in-law tried to intervene and basically caught a huge gap. How
do I penetrate to be able to talk to him and basically separate myself from the other
brother in-law that basically burned a bridge as far as being able to penetrate this
situation?

CM: So how are you related to this boy and his mother?

Oscar: I am married to his aunt basically. His father was my wife's brother.

CM: Okay, alright. So obviously this boy is grieving for the father.

Oscar: Yes, he is.

CM: Right, and really needs a father figure but probably feels that if he has a step-
father figure, he would be betraying his father. So he's caught in a conflict of loyalties

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there. So I would approach him. Can you talk to him?

Oscar: Yes I can talk to him but I am concerned that he's going to dismiss me like he
dismissed the other brother-in-law. Basically the other brother-in-law tried to intervene
and that was exactly the response, “He's not my father. I don't want to talk to him.”

CM: Right, right. Then I think that you should come in with a position that, “I am just
an uncle and not even a biological uncle," but here is the thing that I want to ask you and
then you ask the boy this okay? If you had a dream, something that you really would like
to have in your life or to see happen I your life even if it seems like it's a far-reach and it
seems impossible, what would that be? And try to get him to tell you his dream that
could be completely like, “Be a movie star” or “Be a rock star” or “Travel around the
world” or whatever. And then you can say, “You know, I would like to help you
accomplish that dream but there are steps in between. So maybe that dream would be for
sometimes from now, but if we took the time frame to a shorter time, if you had a dream
for something for that you would like to see happen three months from now, what would
you like to have happen three months from now?” And then take it back to one month
from now, “What would you like in one month?” You say “Look, I have a lot of
resources. As you, know I manage a big hospital with many people in it. I will find the
resources and we will get to your dream one small step at a time.” And don't behave like
anything that he says is absurd.

For example, if he says, “I would like to have my own apartment and use drugs all day."
You can say, “You know, these trips that you can take are much better than a drug trip
and much more interesting, much more adventurous. Instead of sitting in your apartment
doing drugs, would you like to take a trip around the world?” Do you see what I mean?
You join him. He is obviously detained probably because of his father's death, he is not
really nineteen, he is more like sixteen or seventeen. So you take him to the dreams that
are appropriate for that age and then you do everything you can to help one step at a time
to fulfill those.

I have got to tell a story about this. I am in my story day today. I just remembered a
situation that I had that was wonderful; and if I tell you, it's a short story, Mark, that will
illustrate the steps that he is to do. I was here in San Diego and I was consulting to youth
services and this is a place in San Diego that deals with very difficult adolescents and
they had this terrible case where it was this very poor very sick grandmother that was
taking care of two adolescent girls, granddaughters, because the parents were drug
addicts who had disappeared; and these girls were miserable, they were constantly
threatening suicide because of the poverty because they didn't have any hopes of
anything. They lived in a remote place so that they couldn’t even go anywhere and they
were alone, just going to school where they didn't do well and it was a bad school and
sitting at home with this old sick grandmother. It looked like an impossible situation and
I was supervising a therapist with this and I said to the therapist, “Ask the girls if they
had a dream of something that they could become or something that could happen in their
lives, what would the dream be?’ and at first they are going to say, “I don't have any
dreams. I don't have anything, just nothing.” But you insist and they are going to come

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up with something. So one girl eventually said that she was very musical and she would
like to learn to play the guitar and the other girl that was the most dramatic one that was
always attempting suicide said that she wanted to be an actress.

Now, I was supervising these and behind the mirror I had 20 students and a camera man
because we were filming this. So as I heard the girls say this, I said to the twenty
students, “Okay, you have 10 minutes to come up with a guitar lesson, theater lessons and
transportation to the theater lessons. So you are very resourceful group here, 20 people,
do it.” In less than fifteen minutes they had come up with two guitars, two guitar
teachers, one of them was one of them that would give the lessons. They had found the
transportation to the drama class and the drama classes were paid for. So I said to three
of them, “Now go to the room where this is happening because I was observing it live
behind the one-way mirror. I said, “Knock on the door and go into the room and just say
your dream has come true and here is how you are going to get the guitar”. They got
theater lessons and theater classes and everything. The girls started screaming. They
couldn't believe it; and from then on, that was it. They didn't need medications anymore.
There were no more suicides or depression or anything. They had focused on something
that for them had huge meaning. So this is a kind of thing that you have to do. Don’t
talk with him about discipline, about respect for his mother, about not being a delinquent.
Just talk to him about his dreams. Does that make sense?

Oscar: I see. Yes it does. Thank you so much.

CM: Okay you are very welcome. What is your name?

Oscar: Oscar.

CM: Okay Oscar, great to have you on the program. Thank you.

MP: Great Oscar, thank you. Hey, I would love to hear more about you. Of course, I
just want to remind anyone. If you have a story where you had a success, we would just
love to know about it. So just send it to us at: RobbinsMadanesTraining@gmail.com.
Oscar, one of the small distinction to add of what Cloe said is that if the young men is
defiant and defensive, I know that at someone who manages a lot, yourself having a lot
of organizational capacity and management experience, it is sometimes tempting to, if
someone gives you a dream to start breaking it down into steps and creating action plans
and so forth for him and I would say, you want to ease into that very slowly, you want to
be his dreams and support him and the outcome is for you to have for him to bond to his
dreams with your support.

CM: That's right, and let me give you another tip. It's better if you go for a walk with
him instead of sitting face to face so he doesn't have to look you in the eyes. So take him
for a walk. That's what I would recommend for a young man like that.

MP: Yeah or take him to a ball game if you like sports or something like that.

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CM: That's right, something where he doesn't have to be looking at your face.

Oscar: Thank you so much. I appreciate the guidance. This has been so worth it. Thank
you.

CM: Thank you. Thank you.

MP: That's great. Okay, we have a question from970 area code.

Teresa:Hello Mark and Cloe, this is Teresa.

MP: Hey Teresa, how are you?

CM: Hi.

Teresa:Good. I was wandering with regards to the video with Liz if in today's society I
have a client, for example, that she has been conditioned. She believes that she has to
mainly succeed her job. She has to be firm, not show her emotions, and I had just
watched the Liz video before having the session with her and I explained to her that this
is something that she is teaching her children to be like not just show any feminine
energy and how do you say to somebody to take on the role of a masculine figure on a
consistent basis is not only harming themselves but also harming their relationships with
those around them?

CM: Well, I think that it's important. One thing that you can say is that she can wear
one hat at work and a different hat at home. So she could have a set of clothes for work
and a very different set of clothes for home and she can be firm and serious at work but
be fun loving and carefree at home. She doesn’t need to let the work personality come
home with her. I often advise men the same thing. Sometimes I will have a husband just
drive around in the car for half an hour before coming home from work so he has half an
hour to change personalities and so the person that walks in the door is not this rigid strict
person from work but is a loving husband and father. She can do the same. Does that
make sense?

Teresa:Most definitely. Thank you.

CM: Okay. I wanted to say one more thing about that. Also I would tell her that it
would be nice for her to have one day a week, let's say Fridays, where she dresses
feminine and she is soft spoken and she is nice and she smiles a lot and she is fun just to
inspire the women in the work place that you can be feminine and be successful.

MP: Absolutely.

CM: Because I think that as women we all have an obligation to help other women to
be able to be successful and keep their femininity. I used to make it a point when I
became well-known in my field, I used to make a whole point of dressing very feminine;

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and now, I don't really have time to do that so much, but I used to put a lot of time in
looking very feminine and of course I am small and I have a feminine voice and so on
because it was a huge part of my identity for other women to see that you can be
successful and still be a woman. I even have some that from the time that I was in
school, I was a pretty good student and I studied psychology in Argentina where the
exams that you took were verbal. Say, you had to stand in front of three professors and
talk and all the other students were sitting in the back of you listening to what you were
saying. So taking an exam was a horrible ordeal.

Teresa:Oh, definitely.

CM: Yeah, I would finish an exam and immediately go buy a fashion magazine, a big
one like Vogue or Bazaar and then I would sit in the front rows so that everybody could
see me that I was looking at clothes in a magazine. The exam was through and I couldn't
care less what the professor thought of me in being interested in fashion.

Teresa:Oh, that's a great story, Cloe. Thank you.

CM: That was my rebellious streak, being feminine and still doing well.

Teresa:That's exceptional. Thank you.

CM: Thank you.

MP: I wanted to add one thing about the importance of offering counter examples. If
you have someone who you feel has taken like a key decision, for instance, in this case
where the woman can’t be soft and feminine, it's important to introduce it in a way that
opens up opportunities for them rather than creating guilt or like a values judgment for
what they have done, and that's why the counter example is so important. With Tony and
Lisa, for instance, when they are talking about her son, Tony was started thinking of
things like, “Well, what if you cried? What if he took you shopping?” These “what if”
questions are very useful in that kind of situation. If you say, “What if you went home
and just giggled for half an hour? What if you every Wednesday you wanted to get
manicure, pedicure and pamper yourself or whatever could be?” That way it opens up
more opportunities for her to be soft without confronting her on which she has done.
Does that make sense?

CM: Or even do something funny at work. For example, one day show up with
cookies for everybody and say that you baked them yourself and then say, “No, I was
kidding. I don't really know how to cook. I bought the cookies.” You know, something
that would take everybody by surprise.

Teresa:Do you have any additional insight to if she has been conditioned over time that
to be soft or to be feminine is considered a sign of weakness or being meek?

CM: You know, it really doesn't matter because our culture is so much like that. It’s in

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the culture. It doesn't have to be, like in Lisa’s case, she had an extreme situation because
the father was so abusive; but the culture particularly in this country, in the United States.
Are you from the United Sates?

Teresa:Yes ma’am.

CM: Yeah, okay. There is such an idea that to be successful a woman has to like a
man. It’s not like that in other countries. I am from Argentina and you have all these
doctors and engineers and lawyers and architects who are women and are very feminine
and of course we have a woman president.

Teresa:Right.

MP: Cloe chose these feminine examples and that showed her strength. When you
choose it consciously, it is not a weakness thing. You are not being forced to do that.
You are saying, “No, I want to wear soft sweater.”

Teresa:So just asking her questions as thought what if she would just maybe, for
example, I am a counselor and a coach, maybe just give her some trials like challenge her
to try it for a week and see how the results are.

MP: Think of it as experiences like, “Let’s see what it feels like for you to wear pink to
work.” The other thing is like what Cloe said about work versus home is that people used
to have much more of a ritual when they came home that now they weren’t working any
more before the electronic age. Even like if you look at the images from the 50s, the
businessmen would come home, he would put on their slippers, he put on his smoking
jacket, have a spice, sit on his chair and it was like, “Oh, now I am going to be
benevolent guy resting at home.” There are rituals that people have when they come
home that they totally shift and it's important for people to understand like, for instance,
you are a prosecuting attorney all day and you are there in a very blood-thirsty business
and you can't go home to your wife and be a blood-thirsty attorney at home with your
wife; you will kill everything. You need to be able to have some rituals that will
transition you from one role to another; and I would point that out because I think people
would get it with, if you give her a couple of different examples, “What would happen if
a police officer went home and decided that the standards of the police officer need to be
kept and held to with this children? What happens?”

Teresa:Thank you so much for sharing this.

CM: Yeah, very good question, very good question.

MP: Okay, guys. We are at 80 minutes, so we will un-mute and say goodbye and we
will see you guys next time. Thank you so much everyone.

Female Voice: Thanks Mark and Cloe.

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Female Voice: Bye.

Male Voice: Thank you, Cloe. Thank you, Mark.

MP: Thank you.

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