Mark Goulston Quotes
Human beings invent just as many ways to sabotage their lives as to improve them.
Goulston, Mark. Get Out of Your Own Way: Overcoming Self-Defeating Behavior. Perigee Books, 1996, p. 1.
There are two general kinds of human action against their own interest. In the first find, citizens place the nation or the good of the community above their own personal advantage. Every soldier who voluntarily fights is engaging in this type of altruistic behavior. The other is where politicians, democratically elected or imposed offend people in some way. In a democracy people will vote against candidates whose policies are better for the individual, but he is offended by their corruption, immorality, racism, sexism or the like. Richard Nixon was turned on by the vast majority of Americans despite the fact that he presided over national affluence, and had by almost any standard made great breakthroughs in foreign policy. Another example is most of the Arab nations whose citizens support leaders who can and will not improve their standard of living but makes them feel good because they maintain Islamic dignity be opposing the West, even when the opposition itself makes development and growth much more difficult.
Mark Goulston is a psychiatrist, executive coach and consultant to major organizations. He is the inventor and developer of the process called Surgical Empathy whereby using targeted and focused empathy, one is able to break through to people and free them from internal emotional and psychological blocks that can impair their functioning, well-being and satisfaction in life.
