How to fail your resolution: rely on willpower

In Life Strategies (1999), self-help guru Dr. Phillip McGraw writes that willpower is a myth – “an unreliable emotional fuel, experienced at fever pitch”.

Willpower may temporarily energise our efforts, he says – helping us to take a leap that initially changes our behaviour. But it will also hinder our progress once the emotional responses to our early endeavours have dissipated. For those wanting to change their behaviour, this makes willpower a dangerous energizer: a fuel that will evaporate, bringing us to a halt at the first difficulty – like a coasting car out-of-petrol and facing the slightest of inclines.

Of course, we are in the land of the New Year’s resolution: those moments when we decide upon change but, all too often and all too quickly, end up reinforcing our failings. The momentum of the new behaviour rarely lasts beyond a week, leaving us gritting our teeth and relying on willpower – all the while secretly knowing it is only a matter of when we fail. The if seemingly dealt with at the first pang of weakness.

So how can we improve our chances of success, whether in big pursuits (a new man/job/career) or small (quit smoking/biting nails/being a couch potato)? McGraw suggests that we replace willpower with a well-developed and well-executed strategy – especially one that manages to remove our emotions as key drivers. But what is a strategy? I spend some time struggling with the concept in What’s Stopping You? (TBP 2011) simply because people with high fear of failure (my target readership in the book) can be easily put off by such ambiguities. And while motivational concepts such as “goals” and “action points” are easily understood, the concept of a strategy can be confusing.

McGraw describes a strategy as the “operational definition” of a plan, which to me sounds like a plan with some detail included. Fine, but a plan for what? Clearly, it’s a plan to meet our goals, but aren’t those our action points – our day-to-day activities that lead us towards our objectives? Well only if they do, in fact, lead us towards our objectives. So perhaps our best definition of a strategy is that it’s a plan that ensures our action points move us in the direction of our ultimate objectives.

I’ll give one (silly) example to illustrate. Say we're arrivistes: social climbers having moved to a new location. If our goal is to ingratiate ourselves with the local squirearchy then one action point could be to hold a smart dinner party in which they are invited. Yet this is one event, which is likely to be well-received but unlikely to secure our invite to her Ladyship’s intimate circle. What’s needed is a strategy. A plan that joins a series of action points to create a co-ordinated and effective advance focused on success. So membership of the tennis and golf clubs is a must, as is some local charity work that may offer an excuse for a direct approach (being careful not to ask for money). The WI, an interest in the Parish Council, championing a local issue, horse riding – all may lead us towards our goal if pursued in a co-ordinated and strategic fashion.

Of course, my example is frivolous and old fashioned. It’s just stating that resolution will fail without a strategy. That action points are not enough without a goal. And that a strategy relies on a series of action points all focused on a calculated and positive objective.

In fact, positivity – the idea of moving towards something rather than away – is crucial for a successful strategy. Saying I want to change my job is negative and, ultimately, meaningless without positive direction (and brings me back to the previous post on running away). Probably, you will achieve your goal, but as it’s a negative pursuit you may find yourself repeating the exercise next year. Far better to move towards something – having calculated our positive and long-term goals and strategized our action points for achieving them.

This even works for habits – the most common target for New Year’s resolutions. Such small and negative pursuits are unlikely to succeed unless they’re one action point in a strategy towards a wider objective. Quitting smoking, for instance, is a narrow and negative objective and therefore one entirely dependent on willpower (leaving aside Allen Carr’s reframing of smoking as an addiction). Moving towards the healthier person you visualise in, say, six months – perhaps losing 10 pounds in weight and that horrible rasping noise in your breath when you climb stairs – makes the end of your smoking habit just one action point is a positive pursuit with a measurable and thought-through long-term objective.

Less and better food, more exercise, new clothes, less alcohol, a remodelled back garden, a walk rather than drive to the station – all are action points along the way: bundled into a strategy for achieving your objective. Of course, willpower isn’t banished as a requirement. We will always need to navigate the occasionally-triggered desire for our old behaviours. But willpower is no longer the central pillar in our pursuit. Instead, our central pillar is a strategy for achieving our positive and long-term goals.

Happy New Year!

My Christmas story: the runaway’s tale

An early family Christmas in my hometown, and something suddenly hits me with blinding clarity - I’ve been running away from my upbringing all my life. I’m now in my forties, so that’s nearly 30 years of flight. Soon it'll be two years of running for every one year of upbringing. Perhaps it’s time to stop and work out why I’ve spent all this time running away, as well as what I’m actually running towards.

Yet I’m hardly alone. Many of the most ambitious people I meet are also the most discontented, with many also defined more by what they are running away from, than by what they seek. Yet it's only when we work out where we are running to, rather than where we're running from, that we can be truly effective in our pursuits. At least that’s my view – as articulated in What’s Stopping You?

With my own story, I need to add two immediate caveats. This isn’t a rejection of my family, although in many cases it clearly challenges their values. My family had its problems (few don’t), and my position in it was also somewhat strained. But I am perfectly content to return home regularly – including at Christmas – and have spent many happy hours as an adult drinking late into the night with my dad, putting the world to rights over malt whiskies and sweeping statements, and have swapped much gossip and many problems with my mum over tea and cake.

And this isn’t a rejection of where I come from. Essex (American readers should think of New Jersey) has its detractors – me one of them on occasion. It can sometimes revel too much in its trashiness, although it also has some values that I think worthwhile. It’s home to more self-made millionaires than any other county and the whole place reeks of endeavour and bootstrapped achievement. There are few silver spoons in Essex, which is massively to its advantage. And in terms of effort – in everything (personal appearance as much as work) – Essex men and women would top any league table in the country.

Yet, still, I ran away. I was utterly convinced I was missing out on something. Ssomething big and exciting. And I was right. From the age of 19 I’ve lived in three cities – London, Manchester and New York – all big and bad metropolises. In some ways my three chosen cities have defined urban living since the industrial revolution and I’ve basked in the vibrancy, tension and shabbiness of all three. I’ve read their histories, explored their nooks and crannies, and learnt their secrets.

There’s a psychological side to this, however. We emerge from our childhood with hard-wired feelings of confidence – being a winner within the system we’ve encountered – or with insecurities. Of being one of the system’s losers. Quite naturally the winners are inclined to stay and enjoy the mastery of their surroundings, while the losers are keen to move on. Most definitely I was one of the system’s losers. Even at the time, I thought the education I encountered lacking: not just quality of teaching or facilities – it lacked compassion, individualism, methodology, reasoning and purpose. It was a Darwinian education – survival was all that mattered, with the closest approximation to Fred Flintstone declared the winner. What’s there not to run away from?

And the brutality of the education system spilled over into the social life of the town. Schoolmates became gangs with silly names, battling with other gangs with equally silly names: in pub car parks, behind the kebab shop, occasionally on the dance floor. Excited and appalled in equal measure, it was only after I saw a “Prize Guy” being carried to an ambulance – unconscious and hooked up to a blood-transfusion unit after an unprovoked attack from a “Baddow Surfer” – that I really saw the utter pointlessness of it all. Although prosperous, our town was culturally dead – with casual violence filling the void.

Yet it wasn’t the gang violence that alienated me from my hometown. It was my insecurities. Short, skinny and under-confident, I detested the town’s nightlife because it projected the same brutal values as the playground of my failing comprehensive school. The successful men were all large and brash, as were the nightclubs. As were the women come to that. To them all – Dave, Tracy, Steve the bouncer – I was the angst-ridden weedy guy: a pseudo-intellectual gobshite. Losing myself in the madding crowds of major cities was by far my best option.

Whether on Oxford Street, Deansgate or Fifth Avenue, being a nobody in the crowd is certainly comforting for insecure people. As Holden Caulfield discovered as far back as the 1940s, there’s something wonderfully poetic about alienation in a big city. It feels like one of those pop videos in which the singer stands motionless watching the accelerated masses whizz by.

The scale of the buildings, the bustle of the streets, the thousands upon thousands of anonymous people – wow! The loneliness – intellectual or otherwise – is more than offset by the potential of such as place. Big cities are sociable yet furtive, democratic yet cool, frenetic yet tolerant. They are everything small town exurbia isn’t – and I’ve wallowed in them all my adult life.

Yet that’s not good enough. Running away is pointless without a pursuit. Being the fox results, at best, in escape. Far better to be the hound that seeks its prey. I encounter runaways all the time when interviewing candidates for a job. Fantastically able to explain the shortcomings of their existing path (as I am at articulating the failings of my hometown), they seize up or manage only platitudes when asked where they want to go. Partly, this is because they suspect a trick question – they perhaps think the answer I seek is one of loyalty and dedication. Yet it isn’t – it would be ridiculous to expect such apostolicism from a stranger. I want the people I employ to have direction. Only then can I calculate whether our paths will coincide long enough for me to offer them a job.

Knowing where we want to end up is difficult – especially for the young. But choose a destination and the route becomes a lot clearer, and a lot more enjoyable. And most goal-setting books (including mine in WSY?) will tell you that determining an objective is enormously helped by calculating our values. Which, of course, can be informed by what we reject.

For instance, Richard Reynolds set up the Guerrilla Gardening movement because he detested the neglect of urban public spaces, especially around his home in South London’s Elephant & Castle. Meanwhile, I became involved with the City Fringe Partnership, which helps enterprise on the edges of London’s financial district, due to a similar concern for the gaps in urban life (unfortunately the CFP has now closed).

In both cases, the interloper could be accused of becoming the zealot. Yet that’s no less harsh than viewing me as a weedy pseudo-intellectual gobshite. Being the new fish keen to contribute is better than being the fish out of water, for sure. More properly, it’s our expression of love for the place we’ve found – the haven that’s not where we’ve run away from. And if we want to make it a better place, then it’s also given us direction. This makes a hound of the fox – turning our flight into our pursuit. And, suddenly, all that running away looks like it means something after all.

Happy Christmas!

HELP! I’m supporting self-help at a summit of cerebral cynics

Yiks – I have my first gig as a self-help writer! It’s at the School of Life in Central London. I’m a speaker at the Self-Help Summit on January 15th – part of the afternoon session entitled “Help Yourself: How Does Self-Help Help?”

This is exciting stuff. External confirmation (as everyone with high fear of failure needs) that this isn’t all nonsense. That I have a point worth listening to – or, at the very least, worth appraisal from a cerebral and engaged audience. Yet I am immediately posed with a problem (beyond, that is, the obvious terror such a gig presents to someone with fear of failure). The School of Life prides itself on its enquiring agnosticism, as well as its wit and intelligence. Certainly, I hope What’s Stopping You? (TBP 2011) has lashings of all three, but I’d be sharing a platform with speakers that do enquiring agnosticism, wit and intelligence for a living. What can I possibly add?

In fact – with respect to the progamme at least – my potential positioning becomes clear after a quick scan of the speaker biographies. Among the speakers are psychologists, philosophers and writers. This is no more than one would expect from the philosophical and inquisitive School of Life crowd – all no doubt scarily tutored in the ways of dialectic debate. One expects searching questions regarding the true intent of self-help and lots of cynicism regarding its outcomes.

Although this is sympathetic to the positioning of the book, which is critical of the self-help industry for over-promising and offering near-instant cures for innate mental conditions, it provides me with little scope. I hardly add much to the debate if I stand up and say: I agree with the last speaker (at least the bits I understood) almost as wholeheartedly as I’ll no doubt agree with the next. It’s clear I'll have to take a different position: I'll have to defend self-help.

This shouldn’t be so hard. After all, I have written a self-help book, even if I seem to be in denial of the fact – largely because of the genre’s somewhat cheesy reputation.

Here are my notes so far:

Self-help sells...
In an age when everyone demands everything, instantly, a genre of books has emerged to tell us we can, indeed, have it all now. Shock, horror! They may be raising our expectations, sure, but they are also a response to the raised expectations of affluence. Isn’t this Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs in action? Having become materially secure, we seek self-esteem: cue self-help. At least that’s the majority position – to have reached the next level. Some in the audience may have progressed further and now seek morality (the top level, according to Maslow). Self-help is harder to defend from this height (though not impossible) because it can sometimes appear to be (and sometimes is) a false promise made to the afflicted desperate for a cure.

This is self help at its worst. Yet, even here, self-help can be defended as capitalism doing its job – creating and fulfilling demands for our general human improvement. For instance, as a kid I watched my dad do lots of jobs around the house. Meanwhile, I put an advert on gumtree.com and some Polish guy or Aussie sorts it out while I take the kids to Dad’s Club. In my view this is progress – both the Polish guy and the kids are better off and I’m using my time more enjoyably. And just as my Polish handymen improve – as long as the supply side is held up – so the bad side of self-help should over time be eclipsed by the good. At least that’s the theory.

...but the hyper-titles are off-putting to some.
The first title for my book was How Not to Fail. Yet my number one target publisher – John Wiley & Sons – suggested that this rather tepid promise was off-putting and wouldn’t sell, so I changed it to the more dynamic What’s Stopping You? In the end I agreed with their view, not because I wanted my advertised outcome to be more than the avoidance of failure – although I did – but because this is a crowded market place and you need to compete. And the title of the book is key.

Another example of hyper-titling comes from one of my heroes: Allen Carr. He wrote The Easy Way to Stop Smoking, a book I loved because it explicitly states there are no instant cures. Carr focused on self-awareness of the triggers trapping nicotine addicts and how they can navigate them. Yet look at the title – you’d think there was a frontal lobotomy kit included. Even Anthony Robbins – cheesy self-help king-of-the-gurus with hyper-titles such as Unlimited Power and Awaken the Giant Within – quickly settles down to offer strong methodologies for practical employment. Indeed, with most of the genre, the over-promising is usually mellowed within: it’s the over-hyping title and cheesy grin from the author that really gets rational eyes rolling.

Self-help helps...
Sourcing answers to problems has to be good for society. All advances require experiment and analysis and, if the self-help industry helps popularize this endeavour, so much the better. For instance, my father was good with a drill and screwdriver but was a pretty hopeless dad. He didn’t think he was hopeless – he’d just swallowed the accepted thinking of his age that small boys had to be toughened up through emotional rejection and mental barbarism (or they'd end up "soft").

Fine, except that we now realise this is utter codswallop. A recipe for low self-esteem and high fear of failure, although such an upbringing probably helped when it came to dealing with restive natives. Yet it took self-help writers such as Steve Biddulph to finally destroy the myth of “tough love” with respect to the treatment of young boys. Sure Biddulph is a psychologist but, make no mistake, Raising Boys is a self-help book aimed at popular consumption. And it took a popular book to change the way people thought about parenting boys. Without him dads would still be in the Dark Ages.

Certainly, my dad never read a self-help book in his life – would scoff at the very notion. Yet this did little for his parenting skills, which was not his fault: bless him. But in our more enlightened age – where self-awareness if more encouraged than self-discipline and where just about every endeavour talks about "best practice" – this is unacceptable.

Meanwhile, I defy anyone to read Stephen Covey's Seven Habits of Highly Effective People and not become more efficient, or Richard Carlson’s Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff and remain as angry and irritated by tiny annoyances, or Mark McCormack’s What They Don’t Teach You at Harvard Business School and not become more effective in their career pursuits. Each contains great truths to help mere mortals navigate the modern jungle. Yet all belong on the bookshop's equivalent of a cheese counter.

...and knowledge is always a benefit.
Why is ignorance to be cherished, with respect to anything – even self-help? It amazes me the number of times I hear people declare their ignorance with pride, usually when such knowledge is unfashionable. For instance, although a southerner, I like the North of England. I went to Manchester University and have a passion for football, so perhaps that helps. Yet I’m constantly amazed by the number of southerners that say: “Oh I’ve never been up north,” usually with a dismissive wave of the hand as if this somehow makes them a better person. It doesn’t – it makes them small-minded and ignorant of their own country.

Dismissing anything – especially something aimed at expanding our understanding of ourselves – is for those with very short horizons. American educator Derek Bok said: “If you think education is expensive, try ignorance” and that is just as true for self awareness, of which self-help is the frontline.

Self-help has a perception problem, especially in the UK...
If you ask someone if they believe in self-development, most right thinking people will of course say “yes”. Self-improvement is also likely to be answered in the affirmative as is self-awareness, self-confidence, self-respect and even self-control. Yet all are alternative names or potential outcomes of self-help. Only the term “self help” generates cynicism – largely because it brings to mind angst-ridden under-confidents lurking in the wrong part of the bookstore and being sucked in by the hyper titles and surgically-whitened grins on the cover. It all seems so embarrassing – like asking for something horrendous at the pharmacist. Yet it also appears synthetic: a bit trashy, sleazy – dare I say it, even a bit too American for us stiff-upper lipped Brits. We’re happy being crap thanks – especially when it comes to our emotions.

...which makes even the self-help writers a little defensive.
In fact my book is no more than a self-help book that begins by dissing the genre. It then nicks its best ideas. Isn’t this how everyone muscles their way in? Certainly, I remember from my political theory and philosophy classes at university each guy demolishing the thesis of the previous thinker before adding his or her view on top. Given this, just maybe I shouldn’t be so embarrassed at the notion of being a self-help writer and, indeed, should use the School of Life talk to “come out” as a wannabe self-help guru. Either that or be “outted” by the other speakers, it seems.

Superstitions are bunk. Aren’t they?

The team at Moorgate bought me a book on London legends for our annual exchange of books at the Christmas dinner. It’s a fascinating account of the superstitions and lore that were a major part of London life in previous eras. In an uncertain world people filled the gaps in their knowledge with false beliefs to cope with their irrational fears, many of which persist despite their obvious falsehood.

Of course, a city the age and size of London has an extraordinary volume of folklore stretching right back to its Roman origins. But then a superstitious person can also build up an extraordinary number of false beliefs. Certainly, I was brought up in a superstitious house and I’ve never quite managed to suppress my irrational side, despite its obvious nonsense. For instance, my mother would never allow pictures of elephants in the house, believing them unlucky. Meanwhile, the bronze elephant on wheels in my entrance hall – a trinket we picked up in a Rajasthan market – stares at me everyday on my way out. And, of course, God forbid (!!?), if misfortune were to ever visit the house, in whatever form, would my rational mind be strong enough, even now, to suppress the obviously nonsensical thought that the elephant was somehow responsible?

I hope so, but I doubt it. Even today – with all my aged rationality – I can find myself looking for wood to touch when I seek luck, and I still instinctively avoid walking under ladders. Thank God (!!?) I’m no longer taken in by the “predictions” of Nostradamus – an obvious snake-oil selling charlatan if ever there was one, although a man I found fascinating right into my late 20s. And my teenage obsession with the Ouija Board’s “mystic powers” has, thankfully, evolved into an interest in the mind’s propensity to deceive.

Of course, many of us are superstitious when we are young because we are struggling to make sense of a world that, ultimately, makes no sense. This makes the young favourably disposed towards luck and superstition, as well as towards conspiracy theories involving grown ups controlling destinies from secret bunkers. There MUST be forces out there shaping our lives – not least because that’s a slightly less scary thought than the notion we are spinning around on a spec of rock controlled only by the laws of physics.

Yet superstitions linger, even in the most rational of minds or the most successful of people. After the 1981 attempted assassination of US president Ronald Reagan, astrologer Joan Quigley became a fixture in the White House. President Roosevelt, meanwhile, was an acute “triskaidekaphobic” (believing the number 13 unlucky). And footballers are so renowned for their ritualistic behaviour – such as being last on the pitch or dressing in a particular order (which must make for some bizarre sights in any pre-match changing room) – that no soccer-star interview is complete without listing them.

Given my recent research for What’s Stopping You? (TBP in March 2011 by Capstone/Wiley) my own superstitions should have surely been rationalised out of existence. Certainly, science can explain it away. Behaviourists such as Burrhus Frederic Skinner of Indiana University have examined ritualistic practices (the root of superstition) as far back as 1948. His experiments involved pigeons being fed at regular intervals regardless of their actions, although noticed they repeated idiosyncratic movements prior to each feeding, clearly fearing that any failure to repeat the movements would prevent the food appearing.

Superstitious humans are doing the same. Even once confronted with the behaviourist's "truth" we continue touching wood or kissing the lucky charm because it costs us nothing, is a comforting gesture, and makes us feel we have some control over our destiny. And it might just be effective. In religious terms this is known as Pascal’s Wager, in which the French philosopher stated we should behave as if God exists simply because we have nothing to lose by doing so.

Pascal’s recommendations can perhaps be labelled “rational irrationalism” – i.e. the active partaking in irrational behaviour having calculated the cost (which is zero) and the benefits (also likely to be zero, but you never know…). Unfortunately, many more vulnerable people are unable to philosophically escape the trap of superstition because of their poor self beliefs. In What’s Stopping You? I examine fear of failure and, early on, deal with the notion that many people with fear of failure have self-beliefs that involve ceding control over their lives to external forces – something known as “attribution theory”.

Attribution theory’s best-known proponent is Bernard Weiner. Working at the University of California in the 1980s, Weiner published a paper to explain the emotional and motivational aspects of academic success and failure. Superstition plays an important role because, as Weiner states, our frame of mind makes an enormous difference with respect to our propensity towards success or failure. Those with high achievement motivation (High-AMs as I call them in the book) have a positive frame of mind that attributes their successes to their own abilities. They also attribute their failures to the need to acquire new skills that, they believe, are within their grasp. Yet those with a negative frame of mind (and therefore with a high fear of failure) attribute their successes to the fact the task was easy or that they were lucky, and their failures to their innate lack of ability.

A key concept in this respect is what Weiner and others refer to as the “locus of control” – i.e. the extent to which individuals believe they can shape events that have an impact upon them. High-AMs have an “internal locus of control”, which means they view themselves as in control of their destiny. They can shape their own lives, including the impact external factors have upon them. Meanwhile, High-FFs (as I call those with high fear of failure) have an “external locus of control”, which results in a self-belief that they are at the whim of external forces (including superstition) – such as luck or fate – and that they have no power to influence other than, perhaps, through ritualistic behaviour.

Unfortunately, those with an external locus of control are also susceptible to the manipulation of others (who they believe to be stronger). And they assume that their skills (or more likely their lack of them) are innate, which means their ability to learn new skills is immediately limited by their self-beliefs.

Having an external locus of control, therefore, can not only lead us in to thinking obstacles to our progress are insurmountable (a self-fulfilling prophesy if ever there was one), it also means we are subject to any influence or signal – good or more likely bad – from outside: hence the disposition towards superstitions such as astrology or fortune telling.

Put like this, the irrationality of superstition is obvious. Isn’t it…?

It’s the faux morality of the media that irritates

As a journalist turned PR (via banking) I’m often asked whether I miss journalism. Sometimes is the answer, although I do plenty of writing, which was the bit I loved most. In fact I love the media and still enjoy my role in it. What I don’t miss, however, is the faux morality of journalism, which I was reminded of again this week following James Naughtie’s slip of the tongue on Radio 4’s Today programme. For those who missed it, Naughtie made the classic near-Spoonerist mistake of mixing up the letters of Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt’s name to produce the one Anglo-Saxon word that taste still precludes from everyday usage. Inexplicably, Andrew Marr then repeated the mistake on Start the Week.

This is pretty harmless stuff, although their apologies – through suppressed guffawing – was the bit that reminded me of the media’s faux morality. These were clearly not heartfelt apologies, which is fine for the media-savvy cognoscente – no offence was really meant by the gaffs. But my guess is that it was the apologies – not the inadvertent swearing – that would have compounded, rather than relieved, any offence caused to more sensitive ears.

I realise this sounds petty, especially from an Essex lad who would have used the gerund of the “f” word to introduce every noun as a schoolboy, but I’ve had some insight into the other side from knowing, and respecting, my mother-in-law. She is a woman of the 1950s. A Royalist, a churchgoer, an old school Tory who always had great faith in the BBC as the mouthpiece of the nation, until recently. And she wouldn’t have taken offence at Naughtie’s slip. In fact, I doubt she’d have even picked up on it so untuned is her ear to coarse language. Yet the unmeant “apologies” delivered through stifled mirth would have, indeed, offended her. That’s what I mean by the faux morality of the media.

In fact, my only compliant to the BBC was on behalf of my mother-in-law. The 10pm news was immediately preceded by a trailer that was nothing more than a stream of shouted swear words from an actor – beginning and ending with “f**king”. She was obviously shocked and, seeing it from her point of view, I sent an email complaint – pointing out that many people tune in specifically to the 10pm News and your 9.59 and 50 seconds timing for the shouted expletives was pretty inconsiderate if not deliberately provocative. I received one of those “sorry you were offended” non-apologies followed by some nonsense reeking of faux morality. “We take our obligations very seriously with respect to warning viewers of potentially offensive material,” it bleated (or something like it) before excusing themselves with such smug arrogance they may as well have sent a picture of the respondent giving me the finger. It would have certainly been more fitting.

As an ex-journalist, I carry my own guilt in this respect – in fact mine is worse because I caused someone to lose their job. When editor of a business magazine I carried a story regarding the behaviour of a bank that had recently changed direction thanks to the appointment of a new director, brought in from the US. I had no idea regarding the figures, or whether this was a good idea in the long-term. I was going on industry gossip, from rivals. Nonetheless, the tone of the article can be easily surmised by the fact we shamefully accompanied the article with a full-page cover cartoon of the bank – clearly represented in human form – shooting itself in the foot. The director, at the time one of few women directors of a European bank, did not survive the poor publicity.

In fact her departure – which may have been for a host of reasons, not just the article – shocked me into re-evaluating my role as a financial journalist. I admired the sector I reported on and began to feel that I’d betrayed it – with the feeling growing with every congratulatory note or phone call I received from other journos (this was pre-email). Yet when confronted by the bank’s PR, I defended the article on the grounds of “public interest” of course. “Stakeholders in the bank have a right to know” blah – but both he and I knew it was tosh. I’d repeated, exaggerated and luridly expressed industry gossip, and no amount of faux morality was going to cover that up.

What has all this got to do with What’s Stopping You? my book on overcoming fear of failure? Quite a lot, actually, because it’s the media’s treatment of vulnerable people that is most at play when it comes to its faux morality. We may immediately think of Susan Boyle – a woman with very apparent vulnerability who shot to fame because of her extraordinary singing voice – yet she’s fine: her fame should compensate her adequately for her Faustian pact with the media.

My main concern, however, are the 1,000s of failed Susan Boyles who are sucked into the media machine – usually via reality TV – and then destroyed by it. Thinking fame their destiny, they are thrust into the limelight and encouraged to behave outrageously, before being thrown off after some humiliating vote or judgement from a panel of celebs (Big Brother, X-Factor, The Apprentice, Dragon’s Den – are all versions of this).

Of course, as we giggle at the humiliation we are comforted by the notion that they volunteer for this modern-day version of gladiatorial combat. Yet in many cases their dreams of celebrity were the classic avoidance tactics of High-FFs (as I call those with a high fear of failure in my book, and as explained in previous posts). Riddled with insecurities, they assume celebrity will cure them, which makes them willing fodder for a media machine that has found reality TV a cheap and popular genre in an age of proliferating channels and tightening budgets. And, of course, the odd casualty can be dealt with by serious statements of concern, funeral attendance (if it gets that far) and other tactics from the Media Book of Faux Morality.

But not all the victims are “volunteers”, or so easily dealt with. Probably the most shocking example I can remember happened on a local radio station. The expansion of local radio in the UK in the 1980s led to some pretty desperate programming to acquire an audience, one of which was the agony aunt phone-in. Seared into my memory is the call from a recently-widowed woman pouring her heart out over the loss of her husband. “I miss him,” she kept saying, “I just miss him so much, I can’t live without him.” This went on for no more than two minutes (maybe less) before it became clear that, having enjoyed her on-air blubbing at first, she was unlikely to add anything more juicy to the programme.

In fact, her refusal to cheer up was becoming a bit boring, so they cut her off and went to another caller. Concerned this appeared brutal, they later spoke of their deep concern for the woman, and that she’d been passed on to a non-existent back-up team of professional counsellors able to deal with her very specific grief-based agonies. Meanwhile, John in Basildon’s got an erectile disfunction problem he wants to share with the entire county. Faux morality indeed.

Money’s ephemeral charm for the goal-setters

With the recent news that a single bottle of wine sold for over £143,000 at auction, I’m reminded both of our obsession with money and an analogy I employed recently with respect to using money as a measurement in goal-setting and success.

Goal-setting is a vital part of any recovery agenda for High-FFs (as I call those with a high fear of failure in my forthcoming book What’s Stopping You?). So vital, in fact, I dedicate one-fifth of the book to the subject. Yet I’m cautious about the use of money as a benchmark for our progress, and positively hostile to the notion of money being a goal in itself. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not anti-money – far from it. What concerns me is the use of money in goal-setting – not least due to the concept of its diminishing returns.

Here comes the analogy: if we were to pay, say, £10 for a bottle of wine, we could perhaps assume that it was twice as nice as the £5 bottle next to it. But what about the £20 wine? Is that twice as nice as the £10 bottle? Yes, probably. Even a £40 bottle could be twice as nice as the £20 wine – at least to the more sophisticated palette. And, perhaps for the connoisseur, an £80 bottle has twice the excellence of the £40 bottle. But at some point – a long way before the £143,000 paid in Hong Kong for the Chateaux Lafite (in fact three bottles were bought at that price, making the total spend over £420,000) – a bottle will stop doubling in quality with the doubling price tag of the wine. Eventually, the purchaser will have to admit that the marginal improvement with every price doubling is so small that they are simply buying prestige, or maybe the hope that someone will pay even more later on.

And it’s the same with money and quality of life. The low-paid but housed have twice the quality of life as the homeless beggar, for sure. Also, the middle class (that’s you) almost certainly has twice the quality of life of those on a subsistence living (even a western one). But as certainly as the wine, at some point our quality of life becomes only marginally improved despite our doubling of the amount of money spent.

In fact, entrepreneur Richard Koch – writing in his book Living the 80/20 Way (2005) – suggests that there is a point at which money starts eroding, rather than adding to our happiness. He is convinced that people tend to over-estimate the return they will receive from earning more and that, while studies show poverty makes us unhappy, adding even more money once we are moderately well off does nothing for our happiness. Rather, it adds stresses that can get in the way, which means that goals based purely on money are, ultimately, unlikely to improve our quality of life.

Of course, money based goals – while appearing shallow to outsiders – can usually be explained in more psychological terms. Further exploration, revealed by the simple question: why do you want to be rich? can get us closer to the truth. If money is a means to improve the qualify of our lives – perhaps through the purchase of nice things – fine, although we are back to the law of diminishing returns. If, however, the answer is we want to prove our worth to our peers (to be seen driving the Ferrari rather than be satisfied with the driving pleasure available from mere ownership), then money is not the goal at all. Self-esteem is our true purpose.

Self-esteem is a worthy goal but the sort of self-esteem that money buys is ephemeral – relying, as it does, on constant external confirmation. Such confirmation may be from our family – usually our parents – but is just as often from our peers, which presents a problem. As we climb the social ladder our peers are likely to change. So while we can seem successful to many, the very process of acquiring that success involves assimilation with new peer groups that are harder in impress. Just like a computer game, money allows us access to this next level. Yet we are soon forced into new battles in order to stay at that level, and certainly to get beyond it. The social paranoia therefore remains – hardly a recipe for happiness, even if the setting has improved and we are now driving (or dating) the latest model.

Yet the quest for money has another, very legitimate, root. Just as often the answer to the question: why do you want to be rich? involves the reply “so I don’t have to worry”. Indeed, fear of the future – and the desire to control the uncontrollable – is a classic High-FF trait. The usual answer to our fear of future unknowns is to buy insurance, with invested wealth the ultimate insurance policy against the ultimate worry of aged penury once we have lost our capacity to earn.

Of course, as with wealth, the concept of poverty is relative and self-defined, and in an affluent society could even mean any compromise to the living standards we have become used to. Certainly, our perception of the necessities of life remains as prone to comparison and relativity as the shallowest of material desires. Alain de Botton in Status Anxiety cites a survey comparing what North Americans considered a necessity in the 30 years between 1970 and 2000. For instance, in 1970 just 20% stated a second car was a necessity, a figure that had grown to 59% by 2000. The figures for a dishwasher were 8% to 44% and home air-conditioning 22% to 70%. And, of course, as “necessities” ramp up and multiply, so do our worries about money.

“Life seems a process of replacing one anxiety with another and substituting one desire for another,” writes de Botton, “which is not to say that we should never strive to overcome any anxieties or fulfill any desires, but that we should perhaps build into our strivings an awareness of the way our goals promise us levels of rest and resolution that they cannot, by definition, deliver,”

With respect to money as a measurement for goal achievement, this couldn’t be more accurate.

My shocking memories, and their impact

The Kelsey Effect also works in reverse, it seems. I had tickets for West Ham Vs Manchester United on Tuesday. Yet it was snowing and I assumed we’d (i.e. West Ham) would lose to the mighty reds (unbeaten since April). So I didn’t go. West Ham won 4-0, although it goes without saying that, had I been at the match, we’d have lost 0-4.

There was a more serious reason for my absence, however. Snowy midweek football matches trigger memories of one of the worst incidents of my life. As a 13-year old on my way home from a very snowy football match our train pulled into a station with policemen, expecting trouble, lining the platform. As we waited, the snow blew into our carriage. I got up to shut the window, only to find a policeman pointing at me from the platform. Before I knew what was happening I’d been hauled from the train and beaten in the face by leather-gloved fists.

Bloodied and confused, and in utter terror, I was dragged to a corner of the station and interrogated. Perhaps at that point – through my tears and blood and my obvious shock and urine soaked trousers – it began to dawn on these burly cops that they’d pulled an innocent child from a train and beaten him up for no good reason. I could hear them discussing the train, now leaving the station, and the fact it was the last one of the night, which led to a bizarre sirens-wailing police-van chase down a snowy motorway to beat the same train to the next station.

As they put me back on the train one of the officers – pointing to my bloodied face – said: “If anyone asks, you did that falling down the stairs, OK.”

Only when I rejoined my friends – who were themselves still shocked from the incident – was I told that one of the officers had shouted “spit at a policeman would you,” as the first leathered-fist hit my face. I guess the snow, the boredom and the shutting window had confused him (although nothing excuses the violence).

Days went by with the only external evidence of the trauma being my fat lip – which I explained to my parents as the result of a crowd crush at the match (this was a decade before the Hillsborough disaster). Yet by the weekend the shock of the incident came flooding out – with me eventually breaking down in tears over Sunday lunch as I confessed the event to my parents.

And the incident has left permanent mental scars – something I have only realised since researching my book What’s Stopping You? It had a profound impact on my view of the world – ending my innocence and shocking my belief system. It shaped – and distorted – my perceptions for many years to come. My attitude towards authority changed. Even with teachers and my parents, I felt more marginalised and became less trusting, less interested in their view. I became more rebellious. More angry, even.

Sure this may have happened to me anyway – a lower middle-class teenager from the English exurbs in the rebellious late-70s could hardly escape the pervasive air of moral and economic decay. And, of course, I do not blame this event for the fear of failure I have experienced all my life (the tackling of which, forms the basis for What’s Stopping You?). Yet even here, unconscious feelings of victimisation – the “why me” aspect of my insecurities (even the half-joke Kelsey Effect with respect to luck) – can all come into play now I think of it.

But I write about the event, not to offer an excuse or seek sympathy, but as an example of memory triggering, and its consequences. The incident illustrates something important: the role of traumatic events in shaping our self beliefs.

In short, the event caused me to experience something akin to post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). This is not as exaggerated as it sounds, and I mean no disrespect to ex-servicemen that have had their lives turned upside down by PTSD. As Yale University’s Dennis Charney – one of the most respected authorities on PTSD – states, even minor incidents, perhaps of public humiliation, can have a major impact on our beliefs because the incident has made a far greater imprint on the brain.

In Emotional Intelligence, Daniel Goleman – citing Charney and others – describes the impact of such traumatic events on the brain. The amygdale – which Goleman describes as a key cluster of components in the limbic system dealing with emotions such as anxiety, distress and fear – signals other brain areas to strengthen their impression of the incident, creating a bigger imprint on the memory. For instance, despite a gap of over 30 years, I can still clearly remember the leading policeman’s face, including his moustache, as well as the smell and feel of his leathered glove.

This strengthening generates what Goleman describes as a new neural “setpoint” in the brain that can cause a lifelong resetting of the brain’s default (i.e. instant) responses to even tangentially-similar situations. In other words our inner beliefs regarding our expected outcomes from particular circumstances have been fundamentally altered.

Importantly, according to studies into PTSD, even brief or mild exposure to traumatic stress – especially when young – can permanently damage the hippocampus (a key part of the brain for the formation of memories) stopping normal new cell growth. And this can prevent us from ever evaluating information other than via this traumatised default setting. Goleman uses the example of a child once frightened by a dog developing a fear of that breed of dog and never naturally developing a calmer response (and potentially the opposite – with each fear incident adding to the fearful “setpoint”). Indeed, it can go further than this – with the child perhaps unknowingly developing a fear of particular footpaths where an encounter with a similar dog is no more than possible.

From such incidents, large and small, our belief system springs – a system that can be all but impossible to shift. Sure, we can work on our responses, once aware that our initial evaluations may be faulty (I spend some time on this in What’s Stopping You?). But a total rewiring is unlikely to ever happen – even through hypnosis of other techniques that, in reality, produce only a deeply-embedded and dangerously unworked form of denial.

So is it any wonder that, once the sky turned snowy, my enthusiasm for the match disappeared? Of course there’s also the fact that, now in my 40s, I’ve done my time freezing my nuts off at a football match, whatever the potential for a historic win! Yet the memory was, indeed, triggered – hence me writing about it now.

“Will my career end in failure?” Sounds like it

The Financial Times agony aunt (yes it does have one) Lucy Kellaway recently tackled an issue that tweaked my interest, regarding feelings of failure at the end of a career. This is an extraordinarily neglected subject. What do we say to someone who, near retirement, becomes convinced they have failed: finally, fatally, forever.

Posted first on FT.com to elicit public responses prior to Lucy’s, this was the problem (nutshelled): “I’m a successful businessman approaching career’s end but haunted by a sense of failure. I missed out on the CEO post but stayed on. Now I feel sidelined. Nobody pays much attention and nobody will remember me. They say ‘all political careers end in failure’. Is this also true of business careers?” – Director, male, 57.

Lucy’s replies are usually spot-on but I felt this one lacked some empathy. Yes, she said, nearly all business careers end in failure. They can end in big, spectacular failure – like, say, the career of Tony Hayward – or they can end in little anonymous failure – like our 57-year old director.

She suggested that things may have ended no better had he won the CEO post and that, he should realize, the feelings of failure are “all inside your own head – no one else will care one way or another”. She offered “various mental tricks” to help him feel better, such as “comparing himself to unsuccessful people”. “I suggest you force yourself to stop thinking about success altogether,” she concluded, as “such thinking always ends in tears. The only way to deal with these horrid truths is denial – to distract yourself with other thoughts”.

I doubt this made our man feel any better about his predicament. Lucy is a highly-successful writer (the inventor of the hilarious Martin Lukes), so she may have had difficulty empathizing with the energy-sapping dull pain of realization and disappointment that had depleted this man’s self-esteem so late in his career. Unlike Lucy, he hadn’t achieved his goals, and now felt he wouldn’t. There are few mental tricks – and especially not denial – that can suppress such a thought.

So what could I say to make this man’s outlook more positive? Looking for ideas, I read the reader’s responses, which were predictably less measured.

• FT reader: "Wow – you maintained a decent position into your late 50s. That’s success. I hope I’m as lucky as you."

This chimes with Lucy’s mental tricks in my opinion. Reframing your thoughts to focus on the positive will offer only the briefest of respites. By his own standards this man has failed. And it’s his perceptions that matter: no one else’s.

• FT reader: "You seem to be suffering from the kind of existentialist angst that most folk address in their teens."

I absolutely agree with this, although I’d replace “most” with “many” as “most” people never face existentialist angst at all. Facing it at 57 is no crime, and will have its advantages: he should be mature enough to cope with the realization that “yes” he will die and “no” he will not achieve everything he wants to achieve. Writing to Lucy is just the start of his coming to terms with this “awful truth”.

• FT reader: "Incredibly narcissistic. Why should anyone remember you? What have you done to make the world a better place? Have you eradicated world famine?"

He knows this – hence the crisis. Yet there are many ways to change the world, not just through charity. Our 57-year old worked for a mid-sized multinational – probably the strongest sector historically for producing life-saving drugs or equipment or even ideas. Also, charity workers have their own benchmarks of achievement, not all of the “save the planet” variety.

• FT reader: "You may wish to consider not defining success by what others may or may not think of you."

He hasn’t. He’s measured himself against his own standards – the billions that failed to achieve his status are, quite rightly, irrelevant.

But among the trite replies were two I thought worthy of further thought. “If you really want to be a CEO,” said the first, “then you are still close to the average age and over 20% of CEOs are in their 60s.”

Certainly, the other guy may falter or become disliked by the board, or there may be a crisis that requires a different sort of head (bringing Mr. Haywood to mind again). Yet why wait? They’ve made their choice and, to be frank, they probably expected (wanted even) you to take the hint and go. One assumes some form of early retirement is possible (making a nuisance of yourself may be a good way of getting this on the table) perhaps with some lucrative consultancy projects as a further sweetener. Meanwhile, sourcing non-exec positions with smaller companies looking for your kind of experience can help rebuild your self-esteem. There are even agencies that can help in this quest.

This brings in the second interesting comment, which declared: “at the end of the game nobody will spend time wondering how the knight on the side of the board got there. They are all pondering THEIR next move, and so should you”.

Certainly, it’s the next move that counts, not the last one (which was a setback you seem to relive daily). The key is to get a plan, develop a strategy and become an effective executioner. With this in mind, I think Stephen Covey’s the man for you. His Seven Habits of Highly Effective People will shake you from your self-fulfilling stupor of negativity, even at your age.

With breath-taking abridgement, here they are:
1) “Be proactive” (don’t mope around the office writing to Lucy – take action),
2) “Begin with the end in mind” (work out what you really want in the long term and move towards that goal with every step you take),
3) “Put first things first” (plan your route),
4) “Think win/win” (this is a must in terms of changing your current win/lose thinking, which is probably making you a bit of a pain in the office),
5) “Seek first to understand, then to be understood” (with every conversation, listen to others rather than inwardly shouting “listen to me”),
6) “Synergize” (develop your network, and use it).
7) “Sharpen the saw” (develop the skills you need to succeed – don’t struggle on with rusty instruments).

At your age it’s also worth considering Covey’s 8th Habit, written as a follow-up to the multi-million selling Seven Habits… . This habit requires you to “find your voice and help others find theirs’,” he states – making the point that self-obsession is desperately unhealthy (as you now realize), while “choosing to serve is the most effective habit of all”. He implores us to find our “unique personal significance”: the key element of ourselves that we can offer to others, perhaps via teaching, mentoring (maybe through non-exec roles) or even consultancy – anything that can pass on that hard-acquired wisdom. Certainly, such a quest would make the perfect final innings for a man of your calibre.

And if you think 57 too old to start, then you are probably right. On the other hand, if you think – with your age and experience – you are now in the perfect place to get going on forging your own path (rather than one dictated by a soulless and myopic board), then – again – you are probably right. So what if you drop dead en route? What a great way to go – far better than staring at the rain everyday and wondering what might have been.

Job interviews from hell. An idiot’s guide

As an employer I’m regularly processing job applicants. And one thing is undeniable from my experience: the privately educated are better at interviews. In fact, this is so obvious I can now divide interviewees by their education without even looking at their CVs. The way the privately-educated walk in the room and greet me, their poise and eye-contact during the interview and their assertions regarding their suitability all exude self-assurance.

This comparative deficit in confidence is an appalling outcome for the state educated majority in the UK. Sure, my evidence is no more than the anecdotes of a small public relations agency. But it also rams home my own ineptitude as a young man “educated” at a failing Essex comprehensive and looking for work both before and after university (which I attended after night-school studies, lest you think I exaggerate the poverty of my secondary education).

To the failings I witness so painfully as an employer, therefore, I can add plenty of my own job-interview disasters. Here are some of my howlers. Thankfully, now, with lessons included.

1) The bullsh***er: Asked to introduce myself at a mass interview for a brewer-turned-leisure company I decided to play on the fact I knew the brewing side had been sold by stating I could tell the difference in the taste of the beer. What utter rubbish! The way the beer was brewed hadn’t changed one jot from the way it had always been brewed – as all the wizened company executives in the room well knew. My clever comment meant I got no further in the process.

Lesson: A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Do your research about the company, and never offer BS thinking it’s insightful, when it’s almost certainly the opposite.

2) The crafty smoker. Early for one interview, I decided I had time for a cigarette in the street outside, although with no lighter I asked the professional-looking man in the street for a light. Of course, as a professional man (even in the early 1980s) he didn’t smoke. He did work in the next building, however, and – as luck would have it – was the very man interviewing me for the post. He was distinctly unimpressed.

Lesson: Reign in the oikish behaviour. To win any job you have to behave in ways that are attractive to the employer. And such behaviour starts well before that company’s front door.

3) The chippy state school boy: Left in a meeting room for an interviewer to arrive, I waited with increasing frustration until he tripped in late apologising for the fact he was “the wrong side of a bottle of claret”. In fact his jollity continued as he disregarded my CV and said “forget all that, tell me: what school did you go to?” I resented the question and let it show. He ended the interview soon after.

Lesson: Why assume the prejudice? If there’s genuine prejudice you’re doomed anyway. But the chances are you’re being overly-sensitive and your reaction is a self-fulfilling own-goal. Looking back, my interpretation now is that he was a little drunk and keen for a matey chat rather than a dull Q&A about experience and qualifications. If I’d found another connection I’d have been away. Sport, wine, long lunches, relationships, uni, boring interviews – there’s always something. Rapport is important in an interview: don’t reject it when it’s offered on a plate.

4) The political animal: Up for a summer job with a travel company my interviewer noticed I’d written “politics” as one of my interests. He frowned at this, stating “as long as you don’t bring it to work”. It was a great summer job travelling the UK as the driver’s mate. Yet he didn’t call back.

Lesson: Why volunteer something potentially off-putting? He suspected I’d bore him senseless on the long journeys. And he was probably right, but what a shame he couldn’t have found out on the overnight trip to Aberdeen. When interviewing, I’m suspicious of any “interest” that may deflect from the job. “DJing” is a common one these days – suggesting (at least to this employer) late nights and illegal substances. So why’s it on the CV (politics was my degree, so why I had to add it as an interest, lord only knows)?

5) The “I can do that” exaggeration. Another summer job – this one as a driver, via an agency. In fact the interview went something like this: drive that to Edmonton, now. There’s a map in the cab. Yet the truck was so terrifyingly large I couldn’t believe I could legally drive it. I got as far as the first roundabout – panicked – parked up (illegally) and fled home. The agency never rang me again.

Lesson: Don’t lie about your skills and experiences. You’ll get caught out. Mild exaggerations are fine, but saying you can do something you patently can’t (such as driving sizable commercial vehicles) is setting you up for a nasty reckoning.

6) The criticiser: An important post-uni interview with a national newspaper editor. Left alone with his deputy for a period I decided to fill the silence with my criticism that the paper had not covered some ridiculous and pointless protest march in Manchester, that I’d not even been on. In fact I was trying to engender a conversation about provincial events and their importance, but my approach was so inept he ended up on the defensive.

Lesson: Never ever put your potential employer on the defensive. You are giving the clearest signal possible that you’ll be a problematic employee. All companies have a purpose and an ethos set by the senior management. Your role in an interview is to demonstrate your knowledge of this and your ability to aid the cause. Not your ability to be an opinionated fool, even on a national newspaper.

Through bitter experience and 10 minutes of interview-skills training at one enlightened job agency I became much better at interviews, although I still regret the fact my school failed to teach the basics. Sadly, I’m left with the impression this has not changed – with state schools still offering insufficient guidance on how to navigate these critical moments for goal achievement.

Martin John Yate tackles this very area in his excellent book Great Answers to Tough Interview Questions (2001). He states that your aim in interviews is to offer concrete proof of your suitability for the role, with the interviewer assessing your poise, confidence and personality as much as your job skills and analytical abilities. His tips include (with my own thoughts added):

• Dress conservatively. Wear a suit (buy one if necessary) and make it one for work, not for impressing potential conquests in a nightclub. And play it safe. I had a recent candidate turn up wearing an Obama 2008 badge. I told him off for making aggressive assumptions regarding my opinions, even of US elections (in fact, he was innocently trying to emphasis his relevant experience on the Obama campaign, but there was no need: it was on his CV). Women should avoid short skirts or low-cut tops, unless they want to be judged solely on things other than their suitability for the role.

• Get the body language right. This is an intense assessment based on your every facet. So facial expressions, posture and gestures all matter enormously. Be attentive (but not intense), alert and engaged. Constant head bobbing, grinning or exaggerated hand usage should all be contained. Eye contact is good but don’t stare. Mirroring is good but don’t freak them out. Taking notes is good (and helps prevent overdoing both the eye contact and mirroring) but don’t write verbatim.

• Know about the company. Research the company and your interviewer. It will impress them. Never “wing it”. The previous guy didn’t.

• Flattery goes a long way. Use any silences to admire the company and suggest your alignment with its values. Criticising the company – about anything – is suicide.

• Experiences count. If need be, offer college volunteering or internships to support the requirements of the post – any actual experience can be used in support while offering “enthusiasm” or the fact you’re a “quick learner” is meaningless.

• Be aware that “an untruth could cost you a job”. Most interviewers can spot BS a mile off. Having said this, its fine to exaggerate a minor aspect of a previous role to suggest alignment with the employer’s need. Though caution is required even here: remember I’m in PR, so I’m looking for someone who can spin a yarn. Other sectors may take a dimmer view.

Does choice mean happiness? You choose

Books on choice and choosing have been hitting the bookstores and Amazon rankings lately – mostly dealing with the potential consequences of choice. Speak to the rich and they’ll immediately tell you that the key advantage of wealth is choice, making the lack of choice – consequently – one of the worst downsides of poverty.

Yet choice also has its downsides. Untutored, we can become stymied by choice. Scared of making the wrong choice, we wring our hands and hesitate. And while this may seem like a harmonious dilemma – compared to those forced to live their life without choice – their restrictions are little comfort as we become potentially terrorised by our own autonomy. If we can choose anything: our career, class, gender, sexuality, identity – then who do we blame when that future turns out not as we had hoped?

Fear of failure is, of course, the psychological consequence of this. Having total freedom to choose our future – with only ourselves to blame for our failures – is enough to make even the confident hesitate at the threshold of a major decision. This, as Renata Salecl argues in her new book Choice, is the “tyranny of choice”, which – she claims – is founded on a series of lies.

The first lie is the notion (often put about by economists) that our individual choices are rational, when they are mostly irrational – based on our unconscious desires. These are likely to be insatiable, meaning that we will always be dissatisfied – hardly a recipe for greater happiness. Indeed, her second lie is the notion choice creates happiness, when in fact choice-overload causes anxiety. We become concerned that our poor choices will lead to public humiliation (a classic concern of the High-FF as I call those with fear of failure).

Salecl states that society’s response to this “tyranny” is a growth in the self-help industry – aimed at aiding choice for the masses. She cites the popularity of books on Feng Shui, for example – helping us even choose where to place the furniture! Certainly this is a major theme of What’s Stopping You? my book on fear of failure (TBP March 2011 by John Wiley & Sons). Seeking a cure for the incurable (our insecurities) we elect temporary authorities that tell us how to behave and how to decide. In the secular modern world these authorities are the self-help gurus or life coaches, and the cure can be NLP or CBT, perhaps delivered by hypnotism or acupuncture or even, what the heck, Feng Shui – anything that is instant and life-changing.

Ultimately, Salecl argues, self-help books perpetuate these anxieties, rather than alleviate them. Offered the chance to become a better person making better choices, we grab it. Yet our insecurities remain unworked and ultimately return – although now we are more jaded than ever because they are laced with disappointment.

Even at street level we outsource our choices to “gurus”, whether these are for fashion or “style”, or – more fundamentally – role models that sway our career preferences (deciding between a career as a popstar or celebrity chef, perhaps). After all, “queen of shops” Mary Portas defined the mid-noughties UK “followers of fashion” as the “disciples of Beckham” – meaning that they had entirely outsourced their reasoning regarding what was and wasn’t fashionable to a celebrity couple from Essex.

More damaging (at least in my view) is Salecl’s noting that the consumer-choice model has ingrained itself into our view of relationships – our search for love following the same pattern of constant comparison and, therefore, near constant switching as we convince ourselves we are missing “a better deal” elsewhere. We are condemned to imagining parallel lives based on perceived wrong turns – especially with our choice of partner.

This brought in the other recently-published book on choice I’d been studying: The Art of Choosing, by Sheena Iyengar. In one passage she discusses arranged marriages, which for 5,000 years was the compact by which women met their husbands in many societies (including in Europe), without any noticeable detriment to that society’s happiness despite contemporary incomprehension that anyone could allow others to handle such an important decision. Some religions still prescribe many aspects of life for their believers, again without any noticeable heightening of hopelessness or depression: in fact quite the opposite.

“Perhaps the main issue with increasing choice is that it betrays our expectations,” says Iyengar – meaning that upping the choice also raises anticipation of a beneficial outcome, which increases disappointment, leading to heightened levels of dissatisfaction: even in marriage.

Yet something bothered me about both Iyengar’s and Salecl’s thesis. Was there not something a bit, well, patronising about them both? I hasten to add that Iyengar was not endorsing arranged marriage, but nonetheless both writers’ attack on choice reminded me of the witty Stuff White People Like by Christian Lander. “Knowing What’s Best for Poor People” was number 62 in his ironic list, in which he discusses the fact white people (by which he means the educated and liberal middle classes of America) get very excited by the idea of “poor people” (by which he means the less-educated, often over-weight Republican voters of the “flyover” states) being offered better (not more, note) choices: for instance being encouraged to abandon Wal-mart for a new trendy whole food market. Yet he ends with a sardonic warning: “It is essential that you make it clear that poor people do not make decisions based on free will. To suggest anything to the contrary could crush white people and their hope for the future”.

Care is therefore needed when describing the confusion created by choice. Sure, choice creates confusion, but our displeasure at the freedom others have to make what we may perceive as the wrong choice is, in fact, our confusion, not there’s. And choice is only confusing for the uninitiated. Study something – anything – and, soon enough, the choices (even bad ones) start to make sense. This is as true for the shopping preferences of the “lumpenproletariat” as it is with respect to “bourgeois” pursuits such as modern art or French cheese.

And what’s the alternative to choice? Presumably, it’s no choice, which is dangerous territory in my opinion. Don’t we end up in some form of paternalistic utopia of Maoist uniformity? At best this will look like an unreformed NHS. At worst like the Year Zero fanaticism of Pol Pot. And as for those stricter societies with restricted choice: well, ignorance is bliss – as they say – but that doesn’t make ignorance preferable. I’ll take choice over clarity anytime because clarity is usually someone else’s imposition.

Perhaps a society of choice is, therefore, the worst, err, choice, except for all the others (to paraphrase Churchill’s line on democracy). But even that seems trite to me: an intellectual victory for the totalitarians even if they know their dream of benevolent uniformity (chosen by them) is impossible to implement, at least without millions dead. For me choice is an absolute if imperfect good. We just need to learn how to exercise it.

Although a bit New Age for my tastes, The Mind of the Soul by Gary Zukav and Linda Francis tackles what they call “responsible choice”. They accept that choice can create fear, and that fear can destroy – rather than create – opportunities. But by taking responsibility for our choices, their view is that we can dispel the fear of choice.

“Each choice you make creates experiences for you and others…In fact, the way you perceive yourself is a choice,” they state, so we must choose, but wisely. This means that the stakes are high – hence employing gurus to help us. Zukav and Francis, however, think wise choices possible once we begin out career as a “scientist of consciousness” (I did say it was a bit New Age). Here’s their dynamic for achieving this:

• Reflect on your intentions before acting or speaking,
• Reflect on the consequences of each intention,
• Choose the consequences you want,
• Observe the change you experience,
• If you do not experience change, re-examine your intentions.

All this is really saying is that, when exercising choice, we should work out what we want (in the long term), as well as why we want it, and observe whether each choice is a step towards that goal or a step away from it. And if we can’t tell, the chances are the choice is of no consequence, which mean it’s nothing to be afraid of.

Where’s the tyranny in that?

Famous quotes for overcoming fear of failure

There’s one box on the Facebook profile that’s always bothers me: favourite quotations. I never know what to put. Listing loads looks like I’m trying too hard but narrowing it down to one may make me look too intense – as if it’s a mantra for my every move.

Yet I do like quotations. They summarize great truths in a memorable phrase, making them far more influential than entire books written on similar subjects. If life comes down to a few moments (to quote Bud Fox in the original Wall Street), then – indeed – our beliefs come down to a few quotes, usually pithily summarized by famous or historical figures.

So what are mine? Given that I count myself as a recovering High-FF (someone overcoming fear of failure), here are four that I find myself quoting more than others.

“No one can make you feel inferior without your consent,” Eleanor Roosevelt (former U.S. first lady). I like this because it states that we are responsible for our feelings – especially with regards to our self beliefs. We must take responsibility for our inner reactions, even to insults.

We are all insulted from time-to-time but it normally says far more about the insulter than the insulted – unless we let it. Of course, this is easier said than done. Insults, or even unintentional slights, can cut us to the core because, so often, we feel they contain a grain of truth. If our self beliefs are negative we are bound to treat insults as confirmations, while ignoring or mistrusting flattery. Yet Roosevelt is simply pointing out that it is our reaction that matters here, not the insult itself (which may have even been unintentional).

“Don't regret not doing something, regret doing it,” Terry Venables (former England football coach). Terry was an Essex lad with West End tastes, and this may sometimes have led him astray. But it more often led him towards achieving his goals. The key is he took action. Sure he made mistakes but his regrets were based on his actions, not his inactions.

I can certainly empathise with this. My first book, published in 2000, contains some passages that make me cringe with embarrassment every time I’m reminded of them. Indeed, my mother, who read a proof, warned me that I’d end up regretting the book if I allowed it to be published. She was right, of course. But the other voice in my head – the one saying that what I’d really regret is turning aside the chance to fulfil my ambition of becoming a published author – was more right.

Life often comes down to decisions between action and inaction: change versus the status quo. All Venables is saying is that the worst form of regret is the “if only” retrospective. Mistakes made are far better than opportunities lost – at least if we want to make progress in our life.

In the end, even my cringe at some of the content of my previous book soon turns to a smile. What was I thinking? I say to myself, and then inwardly chuckle – having learnt the lesson that I need to be aware that what I write today will matter tomorrow. If I’d listened to my mother, however, my frustration at the lost opportunity would have been unbearable.

“KBO (keep buggering on),” Winston Churchill (former UK PM). This became his motto during what his biographers termed the wilderness years of the 1930s. From the backbenches of the House of Commons he tried to warn the world of the dangers of Nazism while the war-weary democracies ignored him, even seeing him as a warmonger (a charge that returned after the war). Yet he also used it during the bleak years of the 1940s with Britain being bombed nightly by a seemingly-invincible enemy.

In both cases it captures the mood perfectly. Emboldened by his inner beliefs and convictions, the phrase allowed Churchill to keep going despite numerous setbacks and humiliations. After each knock Churchill would pick himself up, dust himself down, learn the lesson, mutter "KBO" and move on – no less convinced of the inalienable truth of his cause.

In fact Churchill coined many memorable quotations during his extraordinary life (although modern revisionists lacking Churchill’s originality of thought like to claim he stole some of them). How about this one to enrich his KBO theme: “If you are going through hell, keep going”. As with KBO, it recognises the struggle. The pain is acknowledged, as is the difficulty. Nonetheless, the only allowable response is to, indeed, keep going.

“Show me a good loser, and I’ll show you a loser,” Alan Hansen (former footballer and current TV football pundit). This is perhaps an unusual one to include because it smacks of the school “Jock” lording it over his weedier peers. The phrase is, indeed, laced with testosterone but that’s just one interpretation – and certainly the one I would have chosen in previous years. Now it tells me that I must have fight. That I cannot be a pacifist in my own endeavours.

Frustration is a key “action signal”, as "life-change" guru Anthony Robbins would say. If we feel like a loser – that life is unfair and has gone against us - that we are capable of more and better but that our luck or timing was out, then, in fact, those are good feelings because they can be converted into action. The worst response – at least for our progress – is to shrug and smile and console ourselves that the other guy was probably more deserving anyway. No he/she wasn’t. It was indeed unfair. We were cheated. The result was a travesty.

Convert that anger into energy, point that energy in the right direction, pull the trigger – and GET OUT OF MY WAY!!!

Can the short guy get the girl? Not if he hates himself

On the tube back to the office I pick up a discarded copy of The Sun newspaper and turned to what’s always my favourite section – the Dear Deirdre problems page. These are normally mildly titillating but the agonies of one 19-year old male struck home. He was confessing his hatred of his 5’ 6” height – stating it had become a major disadvantage in his social life. While his friends were out clubbing and chatting to the opposite sex, he had lost confidence and now avoided social situations – concerned he’d be rejected by females or even laughed at.

Deirdre’s response was that, at 19, he may still grow and that he should seek counselling to explore why his height had caused him to lose confidence. This seemed inadequate to me – almost a dismissal. So could this 5’8” 40-something male do any better? I could try.

1) First the bad news. Sure, you may yet grow, but you may not. In fact, your loss of confidence is perhaps a natural response to the realisation that this may be it in terms of height. It is also the right response – denial or fantasizing is ridiculous. You are at least seeing the reality and facing your demons, even if – at the moment – you hate what you are seeing (stick with me here, it gets better).

2) Does it matter? Yes, it does. Most women are naturally attracted to men considerably taller than themselves – so your pool of available females is reduced. And it will also have an impact in your career – taller men do tend to generate a confidence in others that means they are more successful. Yet don’t despair. Over time, this in-built disadvantage will disappear – I promise – as long as you take the right path now.

3) At 19, low stature is, indeed, agony. Yet the male trait that – in my experience – women tend to most admire in men is not height but confidence. And it’s height that gives men the confidence to approach women in social situations. But so does money and power – hence those assets also being an aphrodisiac, at least to the men (BTW: I’m keen to emphasise that I'm stating the truth as I see it, not passing judgement on whether society is right in its evaluations). As a 19-year old you are unlikely to have much money or power, however, so the key confidence-building asset at this stage is your looks, of which stature is probably the most significant. Yet now is the winter of your discontent – things will improve.

4) First up is aging. Height makes you look older, which will be a disadvantage for far longer than the 10 or so years in which it’s an advantage. People age at different speeds and, from about 30 onwards, shorter men tend to look significantly younger than their taller peers. Also, even physically, older men are judged on far more than their height. Hair for instance – losing your hair is no respecter of height or looks (notice Prince William). Weight is another example. Staying trim is totally in your power and is more and more appreciated by potential partners as we all fill-out from about 30 onwards. Avoiding smoking, excessive alcohol and drugs-use is another way of retaining your youthful looks. And this is all to your long-term advantage – success as a nightclubbing teenager can easily result in excessive hedonism that, by 30, will have taken a major physical toll. Your failures in this environment, therefore, may stand you in good stead over time.

5) Yet it’s the zone beyond the physical where you can really prosper. In just a few years from now your height will have little significance – especially with respect to your interaction with women. At your age, few people are settling into longer-term relationships so the whole game feels like an episode of 90210 or Hollyoaks. Yet this phase is short-lived and, soon-enough, flings will start converting into longer-term relationships that require a totally different set of attributes. Honesty, commitment, humour, tolerance - all are traits required for successful long-term relationships. Meanwhile the good-looking tall guy may have developed alternative traits – including arrogance, vanity and selfishness – that become increasingly ugly to women seeking a soul mate (even if those traits looked initially attractive). Of course, not all tall men develop these traits – but my experience is that those relying solely on their height often do.

6) This also works in your career. Tall-guys may initially prosper because they look the part and, given their success, soon act the part. Yet careers are a marathon not a sprint. And “winging it” based on first impressions becomes less of an option as we progress. Diligence, preparation and endeavour are far more important traits over the long term and the short guy – needing to overcome his inbuilt disadvantage – is often the most diligent and best prepared person in the room (except perhaps for female executives or others who also perceive barriers to their progress based on judgements other than their competence). So the lesson here is not to sulk and get angry, but to get organised and work hard. Ex-chancellor Nigel Lawson used to invest in companies where the CEO (if male) was 5’8” or shorter because he knew that, in order for that man to get to that seniority, he had to be that much better than his rivals. Of course, talented tall men also prosper (probably more so) but the bluff of mere height is eventually exposed, I promise, making the workplace much more of an even playing field over time.

7) Yet the above stated benefits are all to come. What can I say that can help you now? Plenty. First up is the fact you may be socializing in the wrong place. Flashy and noisy nightclubs and bars are geared towards purely physical judgements – just look at the trouble women have to go to in order to compete in such an environment! At your age I lived in Essex – land of the glamour nightspots and shallow vanities. Once at university in Manchester, however, the whole scene changed to one where I was judged on my personality rather than my appearance. My height insecurities disappeared. So if you are being judged for your height – and it is frustrating you – then my guess is you are too intelligent for your current environment. See your hurt as an “action signal” for finding a better place where judgements are not so skin deep. And it may also be worth remembering that the whole nightclub scenario – boy approaches girl and tries to chat her up – is a total pain for all but the shallowest female. Worthy partners will not appreciate the nightclub pick-up because they’ll assume you’re yet another jerk playing the numbers game. So don’t be that jerk. My advice is to avoid those places like the plague and instead look for a social life where some form of verbal inter-action is at least possible: not least because the women you meet will be a lot nicer.

8) Develop your personality. Clearly, your height concerns are making you miserable. Yet the key thing to remember is that it’s your reaction that’s unattractive – not you physically. Short guys are always getting the girl: self-haters, sulkers and depressives, meanwhile, will only attract others with the same insecurities. Along with confidence, most women absolutely love a cheeky smile and a joke. Yet both are impossible if you’re so focused on the potential downside of your height. Short men that respond by developing a strong personality are at a fantastic advantage (although, again, not in a flashy nightclub). For instance, nearly all comedians are below average height. Yet few have problems when it comes to attracting partners.

9) Never ever wear anything to make you taller – such as high-heels or lifts. They will ultimately compound your insecurities. However, you can help overcome disadvantages by being well dressed. Just as the 1960s Mods were determined to wear better suits than their bosses, so you should become sartorially more skilled than your taller rivals. I don’t mean “frontal lobotomy” designer crap. I mean Trinny & Susannah awareness of what works for you and an attention to detail in this respect. With hair and general grooming also, don’t overdo it but get it right. Invest in your look – but do the research first

10) Finally, remember Eleanor Roosevelt’s famous quote, “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent”. You may need to reframe your view of the jibes and insults you receive. Just as you have about your height, nearly everyone has some insecurity that eats away at them even if they are good at hiding it. This is mostly revealed by put downs of others or joy at another’s misfortune. I once met a very confident short man and asked him if he was ever bothered by negative comments about his height. “What! You mean those comments from insecure tall men?” he said. “That’s just them revealing their inadequacies.” It took me years to realise the fundamental truth of this but, I now accept this as a statement of fact: if the only thing going for you is your height, you knock the short guy as a way of trying to impose your warped view of hierarchy. A classic example of this was the recent spat between French President Nicholas Sarkozy (5’5”) and his rival, the upper class Dominique de Villepin (6’3”). Beaten to the presidency by the shorter man, de Villepin took to referring to him as “the dwarf”. Yet, despite some very real concerns about Sarkozy’s treatment of his rival, such bitterness backfired on Villepin. Not only did it reveal him as an insecure loser, it gave the whole of France a strong clue as to why he probably lost (Sarkozy’s main rival now is the 5’7” Dominique Strauss-Kahn). Through diligence, endeavour and organisation, Sarkozy turned his height disadvantage into a major driver for his ambition – not least with respect to winning the girl.