Dan Erwin

Resolving Stress with Self-Talk

Research on the role of self-talk is extensive and has been going on for years--especially in sport psychology. I recognized the importance of self-talk as a teen-ager--and began to use it decades before I ever studied the research. Some of the fiction I was reading included conversations an individual was having with theirselves. And I thought it might be helpful too. At first I used it because it worked to change my behaviors and learn new ones. These internal conversation served numerous capacities for me as just a high school student in the early 1950s. It made sense and worked well for me. In this blog, though, I simply want to report on how I resolved some short-term stress with a bit of self-talk.

But first, what do I mean by the term self-talk? Self-talk is just another of the terms that originated in the humanities and was plagiarized by psychology.

Actually, the notion of talking to yourself has a long history, beginning with the philosopher Plato, who discussed it more than 2,000 years ago. By the 1880s, researchers began studying what self-talk was and how it worked. This notion of internal speech took off in the 1930s with work by the Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky, who proposed a theory about how it develops. Vygotsky suggested that`. . .

The Secret to Great Reading

I would never have thought about the secret to literature as well as history and the arts except that recently I finished Mark Edmundson’s fabulous little book, “Why Read,” for at least the third time. The book has been so enlightening for me that this was my third actual copy of the book. I read my first copy, shortly after it came out in 2004, and marked it up, along with about two pages of notes in the front. Then six or seven years ago, I picked up Edmundson’s book on the humanities which included three books, “Why Teach? Why Write? And a second copy for me of “Why Read?” All three copies of “Why Read?” have sets of my notes that are reflective of the different perspectives that were shaping my life during just these last twenty years.

Surprisingly, this third copy has the most notes throughout the book and in the front pages. There are four full pages of notes in that copy and different responses throughout most of the pages. Clearly, this last read surfaced issues out of my past that were not yet clear in the earlier reads. I’ve had a very busy brain for the last twenty years. It’s had no off-switch.

Informative versus illuminating
What Edmundson explains so well is the distinction between writing that merely informs and literature which illuminates. The distinction is important. Writing that is informative focuses on data, facts, statistics, things known that provide the basis for reasoning or calculation. Illumination, in contrast, focuses upon change which can impact the individual, enhancing not merely their understanding, but their life.

Surprising Research on Racial Voting

As a general rule, most people think that race and anti-race determine voting patterns. Many voters on the left thinnk that supporters of Trump are motivated by racism. One Psychologist recently said that "as a nation, we must face the possibility that a large segment of the white population harbors strong racist and bigoted beliefs."

But is that really true?

A meta-analytic study out of the University of Amsterdam (Netherlands) disputes that claim. Meta-analytical studies are the analysis of many different studies on a question. And the question is very important for today's presidential race. With Vice-President Kamala Harris as the Democratic candidate for president, are voters motivated by race?

The Amsterdam study included results from 43 experiments, based largely on US participants and including 305,632 participants. 

The authors concluded, "On average the political underrepresentation of racial/ethnic minorities citizens is unlikely to be caused by voters." Overall, race doesn't play a substantial role in voter decision about candidates. The study also indicated that it fits with other evidence that voters show a slight preference for women candidates.

I can hear a lot of people disagreeing with those conclusions. But that's what 43 different experiments reveal. It becomes more obvious that Western democracies are working toward "historically unprecedented levels of egalitarianism." It fits with the fact that about three years ago my 60 year-old daughter married a Liberian--a former student of hers. And absolutely no one gives a damn--other than the marriage is meaningful and happy. I, for example, think he's just a delightful guy! It's no different what-so-ever than the easy comment of my thirty-plus year-old coach  made, when asked about his family, that one of his brothers is gay. It's just ho-hum.

Asking Questions of Professionals

When I was a kid in the 1940s and early 1950s, it was possible to ask a medical question of a physician and get a specific answer or an “I don’t know.” The answer usually comprised much of what was known in medical circles about a given subject. That is no longer true. Today, asking any medical question of a physician or just any question in the discipline of a professional expert can be a useless or even a danger.

There are several reasons why this is so.

First, the various disciplines of medicine are each so profound that no well-trained physician—even the Harvard, Hopkins, Stanford or Chicago variety—is capable of handling much more than their own narrow discipline and very general medical questions. Asking a physician, for example, about nutrition or exercise is often fraught with useless generalities. Many of them will tell you that, but some won’t.

Tim Walz As Seen in Australia

The Economist picked up on Tim Walz as reported in Australia by journalist Katy Hall. A brilliant analysis of the difficulties Trump will have talking about Walz.

"A view from elsewhere"

"Tim Walz is the “embodiment of typical middle America”, wrote Katy Hill in the Sydney Morning Herald, an Australian newspaper. He looks like “he went to the hardware shop for a new garden hose one Saturday morning and picked up a VP nomination on the way home”. That’s a problem for Mr Trump. When he lashes out at Mr Walz he 'punches his own voters'."  

Milestones of Growth Fostering Relationships

Every person who intends to exert leadership in his personal life, in business or any other vocation—even in the family--will intentionally focus on personal growth. In my field, research has shown us that effective business leadership growth inevitably requires mentors. Though true, that notion is plainly an understatement. The fact is that all living and all development takes place only with relationships. To put it still more directly, we experience growth because of our connections to other people. I can go through my years since grade school and well into my sixties, and still point to people that changed my life, impacts that would have to be considered as turning points, even milestones—a significant change in my life. Change that would never have happened without those connections.

The underpinnings of growth are inevitably acts of creativity built on relationships. Virginia Woolf puts it this way: Masterpieces (turning points and milestones) are not single and solitary births; they are the outcome of thinking in common, of thinking by a body of the people, so that the experience of the mass is behind the single voice. In his extensive and enlightening work, Ronald Burt points out accountability "flows through the formal organization of authority relations. Everything else flows through the informal--advice, coordination, cooperation, friendship, gossip, knowledge, trust." And that "people who have relations that span the . . . holes between people have a vision advantage in detecting and developing good ideas." 

I still have a lot of memory about my first real growth experience, a phenomenally unique milestone of detecting and developing new ideas while only in the 7th grade. The experience was actually initiated by a civics teacher, Mr. Fickes, a teacher whom I thought was pretty dumb.

Sorry Counselor. Negotiating Boundaries Is What’s Needed.

Not setting boundaries.

What's the difference? Is it substantial? Or are they just two words for the same thing? And does it really matter? Prior to the 1950s, they would have been just two words for the same thing. That is, if anyone ever used the term “negotiating” boundaries. The practice of “negotiating” boundaries comes primarily out of the 1980s with the flattening of business hierarchies and the strong orientation to women’s rights. With the exception of sales negotiation, it was rare to talk about negotiating relationships until the mid-1980s. And since then, there have been tons of research and some training solely in the practice of negotiating interpersonal boundaries. In simple terms, setting boundaries is one individual determining boundaries for others. Negotiating boundaries is two or more creating a workable agreement on the boundaries between them.

So, there’s a significant difference between setting and negotiating boundaries. Major business leaders as well as many community leaders recognize these differences even without distinguishing between the two terms. But, ask the right questions and they can clarify immediately. I’ve learned, sadly, that these same professionals are typically incapable of using the negotiation competence in their family. Shifting competencies from one context to another without training is highly problematic—even for top business school grads. Similarly, lower-level bureaucrats, patriarchal families, pastors, the Roman and Evangelical churches, small and medium-sized privately held owner-firms lack insight to the distinctions and sometimes have a lot of resistance on their hands as a result of their ignorance.