Salespeople are in the decision business. Their livelihood depends on the decisions of others.

In my line of work, I frequently communicate with CEOs and their executive assistants, and nowhere is the need for gratitude more clear.

Forget the empty platitudes; your star employee is not a 'godsend.' They are a person deserving of your not infrequent acknowledgment and worthy of appreciation and respect.

Yes, CEOs are under pressure from all sides, and executives have all sorts of people pushing and pulling at them. But too often, they begin to view and treat their teams, and especially their assistants, as appliances. And a good assistant knows that the last thing their boss wants to hear from them is a personal complaint about anything.

There will always be people who think that money and benefits and even just having a job should be thanks enough. There are also those that think they do a great job without anyone having to thank them. But study after study has shown that no one is immune from the motivating effects of acknowledgement and thanks.

The most influential people strive for genuine buy-in and commitment - they don't rely on compliance techniques that only secure short-term persuasion.

Why do people who consider themselves good communicators often fail to actually hear each other? Often it's due to a mismatch of styles: To someone who prefers to vent, someone who prefers to explain seems patronizing; explainers experience venters as volatile.

When you listen with memory, you have an old agenda, and when you listen with desire, you have a new one. You can't listen to the other person if your agenda is overtaking you.

Very often, when you get into a conversation that's more of a debate, you'll pick up that the other person is venting at you. And when someone vents at you, it triggers a reaction. You get defensive and vent back.

Women work and feel like they have to take care of so many details. Sometimes they don't get much help from their husbands.

I know CEOs, and they get sick when they have to lay people off, especially around Christmas.

Sadly, most labor attorneys will advise you not to say you're wrong to anyone, because that might lead them to have something they can use to sue you.

Do not go out first thing after signing a contract and buy assets that are huge compared to the contract signed. Just because you have money for the first time doesn't mean you have to spend it before you know all the ramifications of buying the assets.

Men such as President Bill Clinton don't have trouble showing a warmth which works for him, but women in power seem hesitant to use their feminine charm in a man's world out of concern for appearing lightweight, manipulative, or needing to use it to make up for something that is lacking.

If, during childhood, you were fortunate to have a parent who drilled into you, 'You can be anything you want to be if you try hard enough at it,' and then supported you in actions, that is something you take with you all your life.

God only knows we need a great role model as a leader who is more leader than they are male or female, who is more about their mission that serves everyone than about ego and personal ambition that only serves them.

The amygdala is like a point guard in the emotional part of your middle brain. When it is overwhelmed, it hijacks you away from being able to access your upper rational brain and think and assess what to do. It essentially disables your ability to think.

Is it possible that the collective global psyche of the world is like an overloaded modem and can no longer meaningfully communicate, comprehend, or listen to anything or anyone else?

To many in the global community, American business - especially our financial institutions - are seen as a bunch of thieves, and as the saying goes, 'There's no honor among thieves.'

PTSD occurs following a trauma that was so awful that in retrospect you don't understand how you survived. What that causes is an extreme feeling of vulnerability that you get past but that doesn't go away.

When you are continuing to be in debt or are going deeper into it, every time a creditor calls, it rubs your face not only in how vulnerable you are, but that people are out to get something from you that you don't have to give.

As safe and secure as you believe you are is as vulnerable as you can turn out to be.

Terrorism thrives when the gap between the 'haves' and 'have nots' becomes so wide and when the 'have nots' reach the point of such desperation, pain, and agony that they have nothing to lose.

Lousy, ineffective actions lead to lousy outcomes. Terrific, effective actions lead to terrific outcomes.

You can't create more jobs for an economy where the vast majority of people are hesitant and even afraid to spend and buy.

If instead of completely focusing on what you are doing, you are racing ahead to something shinier or to the next best thing, you will not develop excellence.

The best way to learn to be present and develop presence is to have the experience of someone you respect and admire being present with and for you.

People who can't take advantage of opportunity take advantage of people.

The more comfortable you become at accepting recognition, the more comfortable you will be with giving it.

People often say, 'I don't need recognition,' and the truth is they are right. We don't need it. But like healthy food and exercise, life is a whole lot better with it.

Happy couples resist the temptation to go to bed at different times. They go to bed at the same time, even if one partner wakes up later to do things while their partner sleeps.

If and when they have a disagreement or argument, and if they can't resolve it, happy couples default to trusting and forgiving rather than distrusting and begrudging.

Have you ever heard someone tell a story but felt they are just mouthing the words without being emotionally connected? When you do this, you often create a more negative reaction than if you hadn't told a story at all. That's because others can see that you're just going through the motions.

Customers are your best teachers. Learning about your customer's beliefs, values, and priorities teaches you which selling points you should emphasize.

It's no fun being a salesperson when it feels like you're talking to a wall. That's what it feels like when you haven't learned your customer's points of interest.

Buying involves decision-making. It's a performance activity, like sports or acting.

When you're actually talking over someone, it's as if you're just pontificating and they're not even there. And their body language - they're trying to get away from you. And if you're pontificating at an audience, and there's a break, the non-martyrs in the audience are not going to come back. I mean, they just want to get away from you.

I think people don't want to be persuaded. And people don't even like to do the persuading.

When you're trying to persuade people, more often than not, they feel you're being pushy. When you focus on influencing them, they're much less defensive and open to hearing what you have to say.

People act on what they want more often than what they need.

People really don't like to be inconvenienced. If you don't agree with that, ask yourself how you like it when it happens to you.

If fun puts a smile on your face, beauty and elegance put a smile in your heart and take your breath away. It's longer-lasting and more satisfying than fun.

MIA stands for 'missing in action,' which is the way others can experience you when you're too busy multi-tasking, being pulled at by the world and by everything that's going on in your head, and, essentially, when you're too busy being busy.

Do something to help your community or people around you. That will help you feel more worthwhile and less alone.

Too often, founders make decisions before determining whether they are the right thing to do. These decisions often create chaos in their companies where people are having to jump from the last 'great idea' to yet another unproven-and-about-to-be-poorly-executed one.

In my executive advising role, my persona, which seems to work very well with both women and men, is being 'the big brother you always wanted.' I am fortunate to have two such big brothers, so this isn't just a theoretical construct.

Women have always run the world; maybe it's time to give them a chance at ruling it.

One of the reasons it is so difficult to break a connection to something or someone you have imprinted on is that after you imprint, it seeds into your mind and goes from working memory to stored, hard-wired memory from which it is much more difficult to sever that attachment.

More often than not, CEOs are conflict-avoidant because their role is to define vision and strategy than it is to get into confrontations with negative and toxic people which they can't stand.

Technology loves and thrives and makes gobs of money on conspicuous consumption.