Copyright © 2010 Madanes-Peysha Publishing

November 12th Q&A

Teleclass Transcript

MP: Mark Peysha

CM: Cloe Madanes

CM: Are you there?

MP: Yup. Okay, everyone. Thank you for coming to this casual session just for the
purpose of answering your questions, seeing how things are going, and just making sure
that we are in contact. We didn’t know how many people would be able to attend. That
was such short notice today so we may not take a whole hour but it looks like we are
getting a whole bunch of questions for the last minute which is great. We obviously
welcome live questions as well. We are going to go through the questions that we
received from you through email and questionnaire first and then if there is anything that
you would like to know more about, you can press star-2 on your phone key pad and get
in line to ask your question. If you are listening on the webcast, then you can just type in
your question and we will do our best to get to everybody.

To answer a question quickly upfront that we have gotten a lot is some of the folks on the
September class – people who just joined us a month ago – have been looking for the
Carol module and I want to let you know there is a little delay putting that on. One of our
people thought that had been put up but I haven’t so I just discovered that. I think at this
point, you should have the Carol module and all the master units for the whole course so
if there is any problems with that let me know but I think you should be all set and I
know a lot of people have been asking for all the bunch of training materials they wanted
more. So, it is that.

And so that is I know those are important questions for everyone but if you have anything
else that comes up, just feel free to ask. Cloe, shall we start with some of the questions
that we have got on the questionnaire?

CM: Yes, I would like to start with Yayir’s question – Yayir from Israel. And some of
these questions are rather long but they are interesting so I would like to read you the
question and maybe I will comment in between what I am reading, and then make some
suggestions and of course, Mark, jump in if you have something to say.

MP: Okay, great.

CM: Okay, Yayir from Israel said: “I have a new 12-year-old boy who came to me with

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his mother because he wanted to work on his self-confidence. So that was the presenting
problem, was from the boy. He wanted to increase his self-confidence. After two
meetings he showed great progress and then I asked the father to join in. I felt that there
is a distance between the boy and his parents and also the boy said he wanted to get more
of his mother’s attention. Both parents work long hours.

In our last meeting I did with them the “breathing to the heart exercise” where all three
stood and did the exercise. At the end of it, I asked the parents to feel what is it that the
boy needed and asked them to open their eyes and do what they feel is right, what the
heart is telling them. I don’t know if this whole group has seen the heart exercises when
people put a hand on their heart and a hand on each other’s heart and breathe deeply.”

Okay? “With their eyes closed usually.” Okay. “What happened then was that both
parents opened their eyes, the mother stood in front of the boy with her arms crossed
across her chest and the father leaned against the wall with his hands in his pockets and
the boy stood with his eyes on the floor. After a few minutes, the mother gave the boy a
small hug and said that he is getting a love from them. What I sensed from this is the boy
that his needs for significance and love are being met in very low levels. I sensed he
feels he disappoints his parents.

“When I tried to tell them what I saw, they rejected this and said that he is getting a lot of
love from them and the father then said that all he wants is things that should be bought
to him like presents. The father then told me about a trip they did where they could not
have fun because the boy always fought with his sister.”

BTW – I don’t know what this means.

MP: By the way.

CM: Oh! “By the way, the boy said that he lost his parents’ love when his sister was
born. At that point, the boy was very angry and said that the father is incriminating him.
The mother said that both of them have cares,” – I am not sure what that means, “and
work very hard. The boy was very angry when she talked about this thing that they never
do things together. I asked the parents that in our next meeting they will come alone. I
want to talk to them about what I saw. Do you have any suggestions how to approach the
parents? What would be a good strategy to show them that the boy is hurting and part of
his low self-confidence is the belief he is not enough for his parents and not being truly
loved as I believe he feels.”

Okay. I think that this would be a very good situation for the pick three issues strategy.

MP: Yes.

CM: I am not sure that all of you have heard me talk about the pick three strategies so I
will summarize it quickly.

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The idea is that the parents together decide on three issues, three things that they want the
child to do or not to do so that they will focus on only three things and once they are in
agreement, they will sit down with the child and tell him, “Look, if you just do these
three things, we will be perfectly happy parents and we don’t expect anything more from
you and we will be totally happy with you.”

But this means they really have to stick to just those three things. So for example in this
case, I would suggest that one of the three things would be not fighting with the sister, not
fighting physically or attacking her verbally or provoking her in any way. Another could
be not asking for material things, not asking for presents, maybe another one would be
taking care of his school work without having to be told – I don’t know. If he has
problems in self-confidence, maybe he also has problems with his homework. I am not
sure.

But that means that then the parents cannot ask him to do anything else so that they
cannot say, “Now, you have to take a shower, now you have to do the dishes, take out the
garbage, don’t answer back,” or whatever it is – just those three things for a time. Let us
say for three months and then after three months or two months, those three things will be
revised and maybe changed.

I think that this strategy is very appropriate for this child and it is possible I would change
it. I would have them come with the boy and have the boy wait in the waiting room
while the parents decide on the three things or he can be present while they are discussing
what the three most important things are. I usually do it in the presence of the boy and
then tell the boy they will be the happiest parents and the boy then has to keep a diary to
note down if the parents make a mistake and forget they are supposed to only focus on
those three things and tell him to do something or focus on something else, because I
think that this would be very appropriate because I get the feeling from your account that
the parents have a certain resentment against this child and it probably is because he is
mean to his sister. And because of his materialism, maybe the parents have a strong
belief that asking for material things is wrong so I think that this would increase really the
boy’s self-confidence because he could actually satisfy what the parents want of him and
it could the eliminate the resentment that the parents feel against him.

MP: Yeah, I mean it sounds to me like he is the oldest child and they are talking about
how much they have to work that sometimes the oldest child gets a lot of resentment
because they are expected to be more mature and almost like one of the adults and so
when they don’t cooperate, it is looked as, “How can you do this? We have this family
that we have to take care of.” So the pick three strategy is great in that instance.

I would add as some (inaudible 0.08.58) for the pick three if he is fighting with his sister.
If you give him to do something concrete to do if he starts to fight with his sister like
when my sister and I start to fight, I will go to my room and close the door and go read on
my bed or something like that.

CM: Right. Something else.

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MP: Empower him so he can do something concrete that he can do in those situations.

CM: Maybe that could be a little rejecting. Maybe he could say to his sister, “I am not
going to fight with you because I made a promise that I will not fight with you.”

MP: Yeah, yeah. However he wants, whatever it would that will empower him. There
are ways that you could do when you start to fight that will put you in a calm place and so
you wouldn’t be fighting with her.

CM: Right and another thing. It is important to bring in the sister since this is such an
issue for the parents and for him and have the two children talk about how they could be
friends and how they could have a project together actually.

MP: Yeah, that is great. The other thing is with the material stuff, you can also just
schedule it so they do talk about material stuff but only once a month or once a week.

CM: Or once a week at a certain day at a certain time, that kind of thing.

MP: Yeah, and he can write down the things that he wants in the mean time so he is
tracking what he wants and they can have a discussion. It is hard to know what is
reasonable, what is unreasonable in terms of the child’s needs and the parent’s attitudes.

CM: Right and that is so culturally involved, but I think it is important to find out
whether he has an allowance because at age 12 he could have an allowance so that he
could save money to buy certain things. Or maybe he would get the money in exchange
for doing some housework or for grades in school or whatever.

MP: Yup, so there is one other thing from the account that made me think was when you
perceive that the boy’s needs are being met at low levels, when you are doing an
intervention with someone, one of your biggest risks is that you deliver a message that
the person is not ready to hear and they reject your message. In general as a rule, in
human communication, if you give someone a reflection of themselves that they reject,
that they cannot identified with then that makes it much more difficult to have a
communication.

So, instead of you for instance speaking for the child and talking about his needs, it
would be much more effective if you have everyone go through the needs together or you
have the boy do that –

CM: Yes, an analysis of the need would be great so that they all – including the sister if
she is not too young. They list the needs in order of importance; they talk about the
vehicles they use to satisfy their needs similar to what I have in my book Relationship
Breakthrough, the workbook at the end.

MP: Yes, because the six human needs, the point of the structure, one of the great things

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about it is that it enables, empowers people to be able to speak themselves about their
needs. So, for the parents to hear the child is completely different for them hearing a
psychologist or a therapist or an interventionist or a coach talking about the child’s needs
especially when you are speaking for a child and to the parents. The parents were going
to say, “Hey, this child is under my domain. You don’t speak to me about my kid’s
needs.” So the six human needs –

CM: Mark, let me correct that because it came out a little bit confusing.

MP: Okay, great.

CM: I think that what you are trying to say is that instead of saying to the parents,
“Look, you are not satisfying this child’s needs for significance and love,” which you
should not say to the parents because that is something that they do not want to hear. You
want to coach them without confronting them so on the contrary I would say, “How much
you know they love the child?” and that you have a great tool for understanding the
child’s needs and for understanding each other’s needs. So you want to do these
exercises and you have a flipchart in your office or a whiteboard or a blackboard so
everybody can see what each other are doing with the needs but it is not a good idea to
invite the parents to come in to tell them that they do not love their child in the right way
or that they do not love their child enough. You will just antagonize them.

MP: Yes, that is exactly right and this is a part of a – one thing that is very interesting
when you are watching the Tony interventions for instance is that you will notice that 75
percent of the things that people need to change, 75 percent of the times that Tony talks to
people about things that they need to do differently it comes from the people themselves
so Tony doesn’t kind of come out of a blue and tell them that they have to change
something. He usually elicits it and so that is the six human needs –

[Cross-talking]

CM: It is by asking questions, yes.

MP: By asking questions and you list it so you understand oh, so, then you can help
people. People will come up with the wrong step that doesn’t make sense or that is
conflicting or that maybe not realistic. I mean you discuss it but it came from the people
originally. Okay.

CM: All right. So here is another question. I am going to read it, Mark.

MP: Yes.

CM: “First, the Jim film saved my life about a year ago. I specifically remember
watching it many years ago then remembering it when I went through a difficult situation.
I have recently been reviewing the notes from the teleclass on Jim 1 and found they are
very helpful. I have also been very significance-driven. In order for me to feel loved,

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that I needed to feel significant. I am also a very big connection person so I have some
very similar patterns to Jim in the video. In fact, except for the divorce, I have some
similar experiences with Jim so what is important here is sure I can spend some time
working on ways of meeting my needs for significance by contributions through things
like volunteering and community work, coaching and things like that. However, is there
a way that I could rework my values completely so that I can have love and connection
for example as a primary value?”

Yes, there is. On a daily basis as you go about your life, stop and think whatever you are
doing or saying or thinking, make it a habit to stop for a moment and think, is this
enhancing my need – satisfying my need for love and connection? Or is this to make me
feel significant? And so make it like a meditation every hour or so where you do
something to satisfy the need for love and connection until it becomes a habit and you
don’t have to stop and ask yourself this anymore.

Now, a word of warning here: Some people are really harsh on themselves and when
they are actually looking for love and connection, they think they are looking for
significance so be fair to yourself.

MP: Yes, but it is easy to beat yourself up in saying that you are trying to get
significance. And so the other question Cloe I have for this is that love and connection
with whom? Does that have to be specific or is that just general because I think –

CM: Right. For example, with your children, with your spouse, with your parents,
whoever it is – I don’t know what the situation is here.

MP: And in those cases, it is actually very – when you are dealing with a concrete person
in a relationship then you can also just switch off your motivation in relation to them so
whatever you are feeling say oh, that I am going to favor – it is just a matter of saying,
oh, I am going to favor connection first. If I was to follow my impulse for significance
right now, I will do this, instead I am going to do this. And you just do that out of habit.

CM: Right. But another simple way of doing it is on a daily basis. Make a list of at least
six people that you want to have love and connection with and they can be family,
friends, whatever and make it a point of each day doing one thing to establish love and
connection with each of those people. I do that. I do that on a daily basis. So I have
phone calls that I have to make to connect, I have emails that I have to send. I make sure
that I am connected at all times with at least six of the most important people in my life.

MP: That is actually huge because if you have one or two relationships where maybe
significantly you have a conflict between significance and love and it may be loaded,
then you do want to diversify and practice it with other people as well because having
different relationships will give you more perspectives. So sometimes when someone has
got that conflict in relation to a spouse or a very important person in their life and it is
important to also favor that in different relationships. We have a follow up question from
Yayir here and it brings up a very good point.

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CM: Okay.

MP: But what do we do about the boy not feeling love? It was very obvious.

CM: Well, you give him the tools to feel loved. Their parents will tell him exactly what
he has to do. If he fulfills those three things, you can then set up a way that the parents
can reward him every single day with a hug and a kiss and saying, “Good job,” and “We
are so happy that you are doing this.” But this is a situation where I believe that the boy
will have to be the one that gives first before the parents can give. Your descriptions of
their body posture and their lack of connection to the child were very dramatic.

MP: Uh-hmm. And how about Cloe if you have parents who are not very demonstrative
who may not have a habit of giving love in that straight-forward way? Will they talk to
the boy…?

CM: You have them practice in these sessions. This is how they are going to give the
hug. This is what they are going to say and they practice this and if they really have
trouble with that it can always be a little letter or a note that is dropped off. Or a little gift
of something that is symbolic like a piece of candy or something like that.

MP: That is great.

CM: Okay. All right. So here I have another one. “I have a friend who I have been
coaching over the last two years. She has two kids, had an affair, divorced her husband,
moved in with the new man and has struggled with her decision for two years. Now, she
is ending the relationship with the affair and wants to try and work through things with
her husband and see if they can either be friends or possibly get back together. The
husband has a girlfriend but it doesn’t sound very serious and is willing to give it a try.

“My three questions are: How do you regain trust when it has been damaged so badly?
How do you keep both of them from not falling into the trap of comparing each other to
the other person they could have been with? And third, do you have any thoughts on how
to best proceed forward in building whatever type of relationship evolved?”

Okay, in answer to the first question: “How do you regain trust?” I would suggest that
they go through a renewal of their marital vows so that it is a new marriage where they
have a total new wedding ceremony, which signifies that it is starting fresh so it is not
regaining trust but starting again with trust. It is a way of setting aside the past and it
should be a real wedding. If they could possibly have a religious ceremony, a big party,
the whole thing to indicate that it is a new marriage.

Then the second: “How can they not fall in the trap of who they could have been with?”
Well, it is a new marriage so the other people are now seen as old boyfriend, old
girlfriend that are not relevant anymore. “And then how to proceed forward in building a
new relationship?” I would put them through all the exercises of the six human needs that

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we have been working on. You have them. They are on the workbook at the end of my
book – Relationship Breakthrough so that they start a new marriage, understanding each
other’s human needs, grading each other as to how they satisfy them so they are very
careful that each will satisfy all six human needs of the other person.

MP: That is great. I love having the wedding, especially there needs to be witnesses also
and you need to have some people there.

CM: Yes. The friends, the relatives, the whole bit and make it a real nice moving
wedding. All right. Do you have something else? Or shall I go through?

MP: No, no, that is perfect. That is perfect.

CM: Okay. Alex from the UK. “I have a client that I have been working with weekly
for a few months now and it is going really well and we have uncovered some very deep
limiting beliefs and have some massive breakthrough moments which I am really proud
and grateful about. One of the limiting beliefs that my client is finding hard to let go of is
that being in a relationship will mean that he will be smothered, hassled and manipulated
because most women need a lot of attention and can be very manipulative.

“I have explained that relationships magnify emotions and once he is in a relationship, it

will not feel like a hassle anymore but a pleasure to share his family life with his lover
but he is not convinced. By his own admission, he is not working with me necessarily
because he has a deep desire to be in a relationship but because he knows that there are
emotional issues he needs to deal with before he can get involved.

“Today, we had a lovely session and we arrived at the conclusion that he is very
emotionally shut down. He simply will not allow himself to feel any negative feelings
such as fear, victimhood, anger, sadness even when they do come up and just as misses
them altogether and tells himself they are not there. He believes that showing emotions is
a sign of weakness. He believes that focusing on that feeling will only give it more
power and make it grow and doesn’t always trust himself to be able to control it and is
worried it might overcome him and take over.

“He desperately wants to change this but it has become such an ingrained belief and habit
in him that he doesn’t know how to go about it and was asking me for very specific how
to do this. How can I help this client who has very strong beliefs about not showing or
even acknowledging all of his feelings, turn a corner and be able to become whole, allow
himself to feel any feeling that surfaces and then let it go?”

Okay, several things here. First, I don’t think it is good to encourage a client to
experience bad emotions. I think that what you have to encourage a client is to learn how
to when a bad emotion comes up, like anger, sadness, victimhood, fears to turn it into
something else. So how he can change his focus, for example, anger can be a call to
action, anger can mean that he has to do an act of contribution, an act of kindness.
Victimhood may mean that he has to help someone who is a real victim. Sadness may
mean that immediately he has to put himself into a state by breathing well, doing

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something aerobic like 20 jumping jacks, something like that, but I think that when you
say that he doesn’t allow himself to experience fear, I think it is the opposite. This man
lives in fear. That is why he can’t have a relationship and you know Tony always says
that when you come from a place of fear, you can never have passion. And so if he stays
with this fear, he will never be able to experience passion in a relationship or even be in a
relationship because relationships are unpredictable and difficult.

And so I would break it step by step and for example, give him the exercise of first
tolerating rejection because obviously he has a huge fear of being rejected. So I would
send him like I don’t know if you heard in my class the strategy of being rejected three
times each day at least or four or five times. I would send him for example to a
department store where he can stand at the bottom of the escalator and when women
come down the escalator he has to say to each one – it doesn’t matter if the woman is too
pretty or too young or too old but just say, “Would you like to have a cup of coffee with
me?” And then the woman would say, “I don’t even know you. Get out of my way,” and
that counts as one rejection so he should get five of those a day to overcome this fear of
approaching someone. And then if he gets involved with somebody, and continues to
have fear, for example, they will go out on a date, they will go to dinner but she will be
mean to him. Test it out and make sure what happens. So break the relationship stuff, the
courting stuff into steps where he can demonstrate to himself at each step that he can
overcome the fear. You want to add something?

MP: Yeah, I think it sounds to me a little bit that there is a cultural thing that happens
with men, especially young men, it is kind of like it is a psychology trap where guys they
start exploring their emotions and their inhibitions and all the fears and all the stuff from
childhood and then they want to somehow turn it around inside that space. And I just
think in most cases, guys will not turn it around when they are sitting around focusing on
their vulnerabilities. I think they need to take action. It sounds to me a little bit like this
is a safe problem rather than a quality problem like if this is a guy in his 20s he should be
focusing on – if I am under my 20s, I am going to be in my 30s, I am going to be in my
40s, where do I want to be? Where do I want to go? What do I want to accomplish?

And so I would redirect him towards a life stage that he is in and try to understand so
where does he want to be when he is 30? Future phase him. Where does he want to be
when he is 40? What is it going to take to get there? And maybe take more of like a
results coach approach where you are helping the person make progress and take real
risks and take some real action and so you know when people get stuck in their
motivations in the sense that they are thinking they get stuck in their fears and their
rejections and trepidation and anxieties and all that stuff especially with the young man, it
is time to actually face the challenge in the real world and that is where he is going to get
the change. That is where he is going to be taking a risk in the real world is what is going
to actually biologically give him the adrenalin in the overcoming an obstacle which is
going to allow him to change and shift that about because some of that stuff, that infinite
vulnerability feelings that people get stuck into – that doesn’t get resolved there. It just
sticks because it is like a floating anxiety. That is what I would suggest – completely
shifting the intervention towards a different direction.

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CM: Yes, right.

MP: Guys think that they have to go through a phase where they explore all the Freudian
stuff you know – my resentments to my parents, what was my childhood like – all that
stuff and that stuff usually doesn’t get resolved in that mode. You can understand that but
then it gets resolved and actually taking action in doing something and even if it is – if he
is not ambitious just have him do something that is contributionary because so at least he
is having the experience on the real world with real people and I think that is where he
will get a lot of changes.

CM: Yes, okay, very good. So I will move on to the next one. “I have been working
with a Middle Eastern family and the husband has had a history of hitting his wife. He
has not in the last two years but it was severe at times. The wife has shared this with me
– not the husband – but I think it is a matter of time before it comes out from him in a
session. I am curious what would you recommend regarding asking and gaining his
wife’s forgiveness. I know you have some brilliant ideas.”

Well, first of all, it is not about forgiveness. It is about repentance. So I think that what
you need to do is sit down with the husband alone and say to him that you know that he
has done some bad things to the wife in the past that you are sure that he must feel bad
about and slowly tell him that you know that he abused his wife at times severely and
then explain to him the importance of apologizing when one does something so wrong –
when one victimizes another person. And actually before you talk about apologizing, talk
about the spiritual thing to the wife for being hit by the husband because marriage has a
deep spiritual significance.

In every religion, marriage is a sacrament. It is really the union of two souls. And then
when you are physically abused by the person that you trust most that you are closest to
by the father of your children, the pain is not just physical, it is not just emotional, it is a
spiritual pain and that is why the apology is so important. So then you tell him that you
want to bring in the wife and she could be waiting in the waiting room and you ask the
husband to get on his knees in front of the wife. This might be too much for a Middle
Eastern family but it is really important because the physical state has to accompany the
words; otherwise, the physiological state is not right so the husband really needs to get on
his knees in front of the wife and tell her how sorry he is for the abuse that happened in
the past and promise that he will never do this again because he understands her spiritual
pain.

And then plan with him an act of reparation, something symbolic that he will do to
signify that this kind of thing will never happen again. So maybe it would be an act of
kindness towards something that she loves. For example, somebody in her family or a
special gift to her that symbolizes repentance but doesn’t necessarily have to be an
expensive thing but that should be something that takes considerable effort and sacrifice
on the part of the husband.

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But the importance here is that the wife wants to forgive it is fine but that should happen
spontaneously. The important thing is the repentance on the part of the husband because
if we are going to make for more peaceful relationships in marriage, it is important to
address the problems of the violent person, in this case the husband, and make sure that
he is not going to do it again and the way to do that is for him to recognizing the spiritual
pain that he caused and to apologize in a heartfelt, sincere way.

MP: Yeah, so in other words, no demands on her. She should be released from all
obligations.

CM: Right, and if she doesn’t forgive that is fine. Maybe in time she will.

MP: Yeah, maybe in time she will. By becoming her husband, he took a vow to protect
her. So he has broken that vow and even if it is just within himself, he needs to
understand that that is a source of her spiritual pain. She delivered herself to him.

CM: Very good. Okay, shall I move to the next?

MP: Yes, please.

CM: Okay, these are several questions or at least two questions from Ken. The first one
is: “What is the best way to work with someone who takes the six human needs as a
menu and says love is my number one need and contribution is my number two need;
however, operationally, they work with certainty and significance as the top two needs?
Some people can feel insulted that you are making a negative judgment on them versus
thanking us for observing their imperfections. I realize we do not want to invalidate them
in any way.”

You know it really doesn’t matter. You can work with the six human needs without being
so concerned about which are the top two. I think it is more important to look at the
vehicles by which the person satisfies the needs so I will not confront the person and say,
"No, the truth is that certainty and significance are more important for you.” I will just
say, “Okay, let us do the vehicles. What has to happen for you to feel loved? What has to
happen for you to feel contribution? Give me three things that have to happen. What
three things that has to happen for you to feel certainty? What three things have to
happen for you to feel significance?” And then help them to change those vehicles so that
they can satisfy their needs more easily and in a way that is good for them and for others
and for the general good.
MP: I agree.

CM: Does that make sense?

MP: Absolutely. There is a bit of a stigma on people being significance-driven but the
truth is plenty of great people are significance-driven and so you have to think that this
person is coming to you for a tune up of their car, you know that they want, I want my
system to work better and so it is important to – if that is what they think. They think

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love and contribution are the number one and two needs then I will say, okay, great, let us
work on it and I agree with Cloe that I think the rules for meeting the needs and the
vehicles are very important and once that person goes through it – just like in the Jim film
where you went through his values and his needs just making sure you understand what
are the vehicles are and what the rules are for filling that the needs are met, that one, that
they are in the person’s control, that there is something that they can do; and two, that
there is something that they can accomplish on a daily basis. So if you do that with the
person they are going to find ways to – they are going to see the ways that they are
making it difficult to meet their needs.

CM: Right. That is a crucial thing. You want to help people to meet the six human
needs in easy ways instead of in huge difficult ways. For example, this person has the
needs for significance, it is so important and he says “Well, for in any day for me to feel
significant, everyone that I run into that day has to tell me that I am a great person.” How
likely is that? It is not going to happen but if the person says, “Well to meet my needs for
significance once a week, I have to realize that I did something well even if it is a small
thing.” For example, cook a good meal or I handed in a paper on time.

Okay. All right. So the second question is: “I am working with someone who had a
history of abuse. Currently she tests all men at an extreme level until they want to get
away from her testing for trust. This is a blind spot for her and if she had her way should
be even more aggressive. I can see several strategies for helping her so my question is
rather specific in wondering: How do I help her to see the way in which she is unfairly
prejudged and over tested people in her environment subsequently alienating them?”

Well, again this is a person that is motivated by fear and as long as she has fear, she
cannot have an intense passionate relationship so I would not call it trust the issue to
overcome because when you talk about trust, it is as if in the other person. It becomes a
test what can the other person do for me to trust them? So call it her fear and then go
over the fact that fear is a very good emotion when there is a clear and very present
danger. So if you are about to get hit by a car, fear is a very good thing; it makes you run
out of the way of the car. But if there is no clear and present danger, fear is in your
imagination. It is either about something that has happened in past or it is your
imagination about the future and so fear should not be part of any relationship unless the
person is coming at you with a gun. And so because of her history, she has a distorted
view of when fear is useful and I think that is what you have to change.

Mark, do you want to add something to that?

MP: I think that it is a great point that when people focus on trust and very often when
someone is over focused on trust, and trust doesn’t really fall into it like 75 percent of the
time so they might have trust issues of people who they don’t have any business getting
into a testing trust with them because they might have a more casual relationship or they
might just be a friend and so I agree that calling it fear is important. And I think I would
focus also one metaphor that will be useful is that when people are very fearful in
relationships, it really killed the relationship. The fearful person is killing it because first

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of all, the person is not living in the present tense with the real person so if she is
replaying images from the past when she was betrayed or when she was abused or hit or
that someone didn’t reassure her then she is killing the present tense relationship with that
person and instead replaying stuff that is inside of her.

And the second thing is when people are very certainty based on relationship, they tend to
have walk around with the restarting button and it is like as soon as the person who gets
anxious or certainty-driven or afraid then suddenly like all the good will from that
relationship from the day before is out the window and you are testing again. It is very
frustrating for other people because they feel like “Hold on, I just did all these things for
you. We had such a great day yesterday and now you are fearful and we are starting over
just because you are afraid?” And so that is not really fair to the other people so I will try
to get her to see that in order to have a relationship and build a relationship, she needs to
let go of the fear because being constantly fearful is something that is going to make
other people not trust the relationship with her.

CM: That is right. And it is also going to make her sick – physically sick – because
when you live in fear, you are constantly discharging adrenaline and cortisone. It is not
good. All right. Shall I move to the next?

MP: Yes.

CM: Okay, so this is Lea, the question is: “I am in a stage of life where I am changing
my job activity from sales to more an entrepreneur. I have different ideas but I don’t
manage to follow through any one of those really so I am more oriented on different
sources of cash like investing. I already started but not really focused. I would like to
start coaching and using also the strategic interventions training and behavioral training
which I love plus I like to create products to enhance quality of life of people inspiring
them – posters, newsletters for companies, editing books, etcetera. The major blocks I
have is thinking: Where will I have more success? Could you please give me an ordeal
or something I can really apply to assure that I take a specific strategy to develop with
force in a short term finally?

Okay, so I think that here we recommend the book Strength Finder and the idea is you
have to think carefully about where is your greatest strength, not what you love to do but
what you are really good at and focus on what you are really good at. Then if there is
something else that you would like to do you can always do it on the side or it can be a
hobby. For example, I love music, I love art, but my strength is in what I do and teaching
strategic intervention and so I indulge in art and music and in literature when I finish my
work. But my work is my work because this is my strength and even though I cannot say
that I always enjoyed – people ask me how you deal with such terrible problems? I know
but I am good at solving them and dealing with the terrible problems is not the fun part.
The fun part is solving them and that is my strength. So, discover where your strengths
are and do that. I think we have talked about this. Go ahead.

MP: Yeah, the idea is that in today’s world, things have shifted so much. Most of us

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were raised thinking: “When I get to a certain age, I am going to go and find this job that
is going to be right for me.” And now things have changed so much that it is more about
finding what you do really well and building a career around that or building an income
stream or a consultancy around that. And because of the web and the way things are
going with the economy, there is so much diversification that is available to you that you
can really customize what you want to do around what you already do well both in terms
of your background that you have in terms of your work background and your skills but
also in terms of what we are calling strengths and so there is a book called Strength
Finders 2.0 and you can go buy that in the bookstore and at the end there is an online test
and when you take that test, I think it is a 20-minute test or something and it will give you
your five top strengths out of something like 57 strengths and it is a unique combination
of strengths that is very – like you have one combination.
There is a 100,000 different combinations or something like that and it will help you get a
sense of really honing on and what you as your neurology and your habits and your skills
already are that you already tend to do unconsciously very well, very often and that
would be a place where I would start and hope you kind of focus into saying, what I
really do is I like to take big ideas and make them small or what I really do is I make
people feel great and it will get down to that very granule level and that will be a good
start.

By the way, we are going to be doing a training on setting up your business, on setting up
your coaching practice and this will be one of the steps so you can get started now. It is
called Strength Finders 2.0 and it will help you understand your strengths profile and then
I would like you to think about what have you always done kind of unconsciously easily
that you may have neglected? Maybe you went into a career where you really capitalized
on it or maybe it is something that you have always done and it came easily to you and
you liked doing but you never made a part of your career. Then the next step after that
will be how can you create value for other people using that? So I will start with that,
Lea and then we can feel free to email and we can discuss about the next steps.

CM: Okay, so here is the next question. “Are the six human needs usually met in order?
Certainty before uncertainty, uncertainty before love/connection, etcetera even though the
person might want different needs met? For example, if a person grew up in a very
uncertain environment, do they usually put certainty first even though they might want
love? And how can the person value the other needs first? I noticed I am always seeking
certainty even though I value love, giving and growth. The times I am contributing and
loving others are times I am the most happy but I seem to get stuck in the certainty mode
in business or my intimate relationship. I have to do so much research to do it perfectly
or I cannot seem to give and contribute to my guy unless I know he will be always there
for me.”

Okay, this is interesting. No, the needs are not met in order and there are many people
who live in total uncertainty and still put love or contributions first. You know one
interesting study was the international worldwide study on happiness that was done – I
cannot remember who run that study but they ended up with a ranking of different
countries in the world in terms of the level of happiness of the people. And the happiest

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country was Bangladesh and this was at a time when they were constantly flooded and
had terrible natural disasters and where the average per capita income was like the lowest
in the world and still those people were happy.

It had to be that certainty was not their top needs and actually the United States where we
live was pretty much at the bottom of the list in terms of happiness even though our
income tends to be very high so this is an interesting issue. Now, sometimes it is true that
if the person has had certainty in their lives, for example, I am thinking of Paul and Jen,
the film that most of you have seen. Jim said Jen grew up with a lot of certainty. She had
a caring family, a very loving father, a very easy financial situation in the family. Then
she married Paul, had two children and major economic difficulties and she started
valuing certainty at the top of her list. So sometimes the reaction to the law of the human
need makes people put it right at the top.

Now, I think Tony would disagree with me. Tony would say, no, I think that Jen probably
had certainty had certainty at the top of her list for a long time and Tony helped her to put
love first – love and connection first. So that can be changed. It varies. Some people
live with total uncertainty and don’t get stuck in meeting certainty. Other people cannot
handle the loss of a certain need and immediately make that the most important need but
certainty is related to fear. Again, we are talking about the same thing. I think that if you
let go of fear, then certainty is not so important and you can love and contribute in an
easier way.

MP: One thing to ask yourself is whether you are just in the habit of living in a deprived
state because there are people who for one reason or another and probably everyone has
gone through a phase of this where you feel like uncertainty that you basically don’t have
enough of the need and when you are in a deprived state where you don’t feel like you
have enough of your needs, you tend to go into certainty and significance because you
want so much to feel like there is a guarantee that you feel safe and you also want to feel
more significant than you do.

And so you talk about how you go into that you get stuck in the certainty about your
business and your intimate relationships, I would ask yourself also those are two
completely different things so it sounds to me that maybe in business the certainty
orientation is really useful. I mean there are places where if you are certainty driven you
can do great in that business. It demands certainty thing. In relationships, it is usually
not very helpful.

CM: Yeah, that is a very important distinction, yeah.

MP: I would look at those different situations when you find yourself in that state where
you are deprived in a certainty and you are just being like how can I feel more certain?
And especially you are saying you have to do so much research to do it perfectly which
sounds like a work metaphor which is good. You have to do a risk assessment and think
yourself, “Okay, I am feeling and this feeling of fear and certainty here. I am going to do
a risk assessment. What is the worst thing that could happen now if something goes

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wrong? If there is a mistake here of there is all the details aren’t lined up, what is the
worst that could happen?”

In business, the consequence might be something like my report will have errors in it, my
boss will find it, it will cause the company some harm and that is a situation where yeah,
the risk is high. You really do need to put all your certainty orientation under a nature
that often mistakes are cleared out and then it is in good shape.

In your relationship, if you do a risk assessment and you are thinking I am feeling
certainty oriented, what is the worst that could happen? Usually the worst that could
happen is that you are in the certainty orientation and you are not going to be able to
connect with your partner. They will not be able to get through to you. You are going to
be focused on your own needs and your own safety and your own certainty and your
partner is going to feel alienated, they will feel like you are ignored by you and so it is a
very different risk assessment. It is a very different risk profile to be like that in your
relationship and in your business. So I would do that, just check with yourself, and think
okay, so what is my risk assessment if I am feeling fearful right now, what is the worst
that can happen in the different situations and try to be kind of realistic about it. Does
that make sense?

CM: Yeah, very good. Okay and here is one last question: “I will be working at the time
that I am mostly working with minorities and I would like to know if there are any
guidelines that according to the six human needs, different minorities have more
tendencies to try to supply. For example, I think I found out that the majority of
immigrant women try to supply for security and significance, using this as corrector in
correcting my appreciation or there is other guidelines to look for in this area.”

Yes, it is interesting about immigrants. I think that many immigrants are looking for
certainty because they do not have it and I think it is also true especially women are
looking for certainty and many immigrants are looking for significance because as an
immigrant myself, I know that when you immigrate you lose your natural sources of
certainty and significance. There is a significance attached to belonging to a certain
social circle in your country of origin.

In your country of origin you know that people know who you are. They can identify
you and place you in the social scale by your name or the way you look or what you do or
your address or what school you went to – many, many different things. All of a sudden
you are an immigrant and you are a stranger. You are an alien basically and people might
meet you and know your name and might give them information and still they cannot
place you and that is a huge loss of significance and certainty and of course there is a
whole uncertainty associated with the difficulties of immigration attaining citizenship and
so on, so I think that you are right on there.

MP: Are there some ideas of how you can reframe things for immigrants who are?

CM: Well, with an immigrant, you have to emphasize that actually even though they feel

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such a need for certainty, they have a huge tolerance for uncertainty and variety that is
why they were able to immigrate. That is why they were able to become an immigrant
and succeed in adjusting to the new country because they are satisfying their need for
uncertainty and variety and for love and connection because they are connecting to new
people and different situations and for growth because there is a huge growth in being an
immigrant and contribution to their families, to give the next generation a better life. And
so you emphasize all the positive things involved in the immigration which there are huge
and immigration is one of those things that what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. It
certainly makes people stronger and that is a strength that has to be pointed out.

MP: Yeah, I would also focus on their identity because immigrants often feel culturally
disjointed and they have also through challenges like when their children grew up natives
in another country and their children are more culturally habituated than the parents and
also two things but it is important to point out I don’t know if they are Americans for
instance but you have to say immigrants built this country. This country would be
nothing – I mean it would not be nothing but immigrants come to countries and they
create massive values. They really work on building the foundations of places and there
are many countries whose huge contributions are made by immigrants and it is important
for them to understand that and also the risks that they took for the future generations
because immigrants very often the parents will take a hit in terms of their certainty in
their income in order for their children or grandchildren to be prosperous in the future.

CM: To have a better life, to have human rights and…

MP: They took a huge risk for good reasons and you want to make sure that they feel
congratulated for that.

CM: Right and another thing that is important to help minorities with is the idea that they
should keep both identities. They don’t have to give up the previous identity – actually
one identity will enrich the other.

MP: And with these days with the internet, you no longer have to leave anyone behind.
It used to be that immigrants would have to leave and they would not see their loved ones
for years and years and not be able to communicate except through a letter. Now, you
are on Facebook so they can talk every day, you have Skype and you can be together
every day. So it is not that different in some ways where they could keep all their
connections much more than any other generations so it is really a blessing.

CM: Yes, all right, very good.

MP: Okay, we have a couple of questions here that we asked live here. One of them
Alex was following up on the question about the man who had the issues with women
and she says that he has absolutely no fear about approaching women and being rejected.
We have worked on this so it sounds like – and I think we had talked about this with her
already the escalator strategy.

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CM: Okay. So the idea is to break up other steps. For example, how to be able to have a
pleasant evening with a woman without the fear that she will be manipulative? How to be
able to joke about it? Take it to the next steps of courtship. How to be able to give a
woman a present without thinking that she will demand many more presents?

MP: Yeah, and the other thing is just say – I mean the bottom line is just if he wants to be
with a feminine woman is that yes, if he wants to have a relationship, she is going to want
attention.

CM: That is for sure.

MP: She is going to want attention, she is going to want presents and she will try to
influence him.

CM: That is right.

MP: I mean that is what people do when they are in a close relationship so you either call
her manipulative or she can call…

CM: Thank you, Mark. Thank you. That is a very important thing. Yeah, he has to
understand that that is life.

MP: Yeah, she is going to be asking him indirectly for his attentions, she is going to be
asking him directly giving him clues about things that she would want from him and it is
a complex, interesting situation to be in that and if he wants some more straightforward
relationship then maybe he just wants some more friendships. I mean that is really a
choice where he needs to be a little bit aligned and realistic about what he is getting into.
He is not going to find a satisfying relationship with a woman where she does not
influence him; she does not ask for attention, she does not manipulate him. That is like
having a guy friend that you go out to see movies with or something like that.

So I agree with Cloe but I would also give him a little bit of a reality frame that if he
cannot accept the emotional reality of the other person, I would focus on some of the
masculine-feminine differences and then just let him understand that and you could
probably impart that to him that and she live in a different worlds and so I think that is
just important for him to get those differences and honor them. That is going to be an
important part of any kind of success for him.

Okay, so we have a question. “Some of the interventions are very advanced. I was
wondering whether there are any issues of crossing boundaries of coaching and
psychotherapy. How do we know if we are crossing any boundaries especially if we have
no training or license in psychology? And this is a question from Greece.

CM: From who? From Greece?

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MP: Greece. From the country.

CM: Okay. All right. You know we are crossing boundaries all the time. The important
thing is to help the person with what they want to be helped. I think that a boundary is
crossed when you are trying to help someone in an area that they didn’t ask for your help,
or in a way that they didn’t ask for your help. But in everyday life, with our friends, with
our families, with our colleagues, we are always crossing the boundary. It is normal, it is
natural for people to help each other so I will just be concerned in learning as much as
you can and not be concerned with that boundary.

MP: Uh-huh. I think the great point is just being courteous, making sure that you have
the person’s permission if they want help with that problem, and I think if you are in
touch with the person, there should be no problem. There are things that you can do with
your own family members that suddenly that is supposed to be regulated or something.
Tell someone to do the pick three strategy or something.

CM: Let me add something to that because she comes from Greece and I imagine that in
Greece, the psychotherapists are very psychoanalytic because after all that is the place of
the Greek tragedy and so one thing that you shouldn’t do if you are coaching is make
interpretations especially unsavory interpretations. So if someone is talking about
something they want to resolve, it is not a good idea to say for example, this is because
you hate your father because you are in love with your mother or something like that.
Don’t make interpretations that are negative and that are kind of insulting. When you do
that you are doing classic psychoanalytic psychotherapy because that is what they do.
They find the negative interpretation, the negative motivation and point that out. What
we do in coaching is the opposite. Instead of looking at the past, our greatest focus is on
the present and the future although sometimes we do have to understand the past so that
we help the person not to repeat it but also we do not look at what is unsavory or ugly.
We look at how it can be changed into something positive without insulting the person.

MP: Yes. I mean one thing is that it is important to always understand what the person’s
outcome is so they need to be clear about the outcome and you are clear about the
outcome and then sometimes the road gets curvy and we have to deal with things from
the past or other things that they did not consider but the outcome needs to be very
important and that is the big difference.

Okay, I have another question here. It is kind of long. “I find myself going two steps
forward and one step backwards and it is hard for me to come to a decision regarding my
boyfriend. I am 26 now and I feel like I am ready to get married and build a family. We
met in Israel when he came to visit and we fell in love, we spent a month here in Israel
and then went to Canada after a month. He sent me a ticket to try Canada. I spent three
months there. It did not work out but I really wanted it to work. I did my best and now
that I am know more thanks for the training I wanted to give it my all but after we got
back, we split up and then two months ago he wrote me an email and moved me with his
honesty and emotions so I wanted to give us a chance but then he got distanced again,
and on top of that he is in Canada and I am here in Israel. We don’t have a plan and we

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have an uncertain situation so neither of us is making an actual move to move out of the
country. I don’t feel he is strong enough for me but I know he could be like in the
(inaudible 10.09.05). I do not want to coach him but I have been giving him a lot of
information and asked what his likes, what his needs are and what he wants to do from –
I love him and he is wonderful in many ways but the distance between and uncertainty is
very confusing and I do not know what to do. In all the modules we get tools on how to
keep our relationship and our marriage but my question is how do you know you want to
marry someone? How do you choose? The fact of me asking this is weird because I
never felt I want to marry someone with whom I felt at the beginning that things changed.
We had a first magical night and he was very open but he was drinking and does not in a
regular basis and key decisions are hard because we are far away from each other so I
would like to get some help.
CM: Okay. So my answer would be you would know that he is the right person when
you just cannot bear to be away from him. If you have so many considerations about
distance and qualifications and so on it seems that you are not really in love with him so
you have to do some introspection, and if you are truly in love with him and you are
passionate about him, it is natural for love to have obstacles. Actually this is a belief in
literature that love does not exist without serious obstacles to it and then you just focus on
how to overcome those obstacles.

MP: Great.

CM: Okay, I think that we have to end, Mark.

MP: Okay, okay. Though we have one more here, Cloe. I think we have a couple of five
minutes. This client comes with the great despair about the past experiences and the
main concern is that he was never able to achieve success. I have a vision and a plan for
a business but I cannot achieve success in any business. However, he said he is able to
help everyone else to become successful but he cannot make it happen.

What do you think you can do to help?

CM: Well, again I think that I would have him focus on his strength so if he helps other
people in their businesses then maybe his strength is to be a consultant and maybe he
should have a consultancy business. Doesn’t that make sense?

MP: Yeah, that is a great point because for instance, some people are great at coming up
with ideas and handling information. Other people are great at execution. Other people
are great at coming back and doing follow through on that execution and assessing it at
the end and so the way you want this person to do and what everyone here should do is
find the thing that and it is usually a small thing that you do extraordinarily well and then
just supplement just the skills around that so there is enough to create value for other
people.

CM: Exactly.

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MP: That is a great point. Okay, very good.

CM: Okay, great questions everybody. Thank you so much. I really appreciate the
questions. Keep sending them. We are going to have more of these types of sessions. I
hope that you enjoyed it as much as I did.

MP: Yeah, I did, too. We did get some more questions that got are asked during the
course of the call and so we are going to save those.

CM: For the next Q&A.

MP: Yeah, if you have any questions just feel free to send us an email if there is anything
that did not get addressed. All right, guys. Well, thank you very much. Let us all
unmute and say good-bye to each other.

CM: Thank you, bye-bye.

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