TED Community » Marcus Cauchi

More About Me

I'm passionate about

Maximising talent. Improving relationships. Helping clients find their voice. Enforce your rights in business. Eliminating deception in the buying process. Making salespeople effective. Chocolate.

An idea worth spreading

Who you are is not what you do. A bad day at the office doesn't make you a bad human being (generally). Role performance is just that. We work hard to help our clients develop and keep a rock solid self-concept and find a purpose because if you don't like yourself, you can't expect anyone else to like you either. And people with a purpose that they are absolutely committed to sell better than those with no purpose. Are you doing fulfilling, meaningful work? Are you satisfied that you are making your greatest possible contribution. If you want to discuss this further I'd welcome your call.

Talk to me about

Selling excellence. Consistently predictable selling. Effective Sales Management systems. Why do people do what they do? Predicting behaviours. Reading behaviour. Body language.Scripting. Contribution

People don't know that I'm good at

tickling my kids, story telling and cooking

My TED Story

I have been most inspired recently by Sir Ken Robinson on creativity, by Laurie Santos on Monkey Economics, by Susan Savage-Rumbaugh on bonobo communication and by Brene Brown on the power of vulnerability.

Comments

• TEDCred score: +0.80 TEDCred reflects your contribution to the TED community.

• +2

  A comment on Talk: JK Rowling: The fringe benefits of failure

  Feb 23 2012: Strikes so many chords for me. Thanks. I'm taking this home to show my daughters to help them understand that failure is universal, part of the human condition and a life without it, is a life without growth.
  
  An interesting point she reinforces is that you only become a failure when you begin to blame. Role failure is just that. Role failure. A bad day at work doesn't make Marcus a bad human being. No one dies if I butcher a cold call or don't get around to reading my emails. I just failed at the task.
  
  I was also struck (see also The Happiness Hypothesis by Jonathan Haidt etc) on the connection between the quality and depth of your relationships and your happiness. So even in your worst times, you adapt. Haidt discusses sex workers in Calcutta who have supportive relationships with family and friends despite the abject poverty, danger and sacrifice of long term health for expediency to feed themselves, they show high levels of satisfaction and happiness despite their circumstances than many wealthier but disengaged and isolated subjects in developed countries.
  
  If you're interested in deeper investigation of the subjects she covers may I suggest Carol Dweck's excellent "Mindset"; Peter Block's "The Right Use of Power". Chip Conley's "Peak" and Dennis Bakke's "Joy at Work"; "Positive Thinking for Kids" by Anne Marshall, "Quirk" by Hannah Holmes and "The Adversity Quotient" by Paul Stoltz. I can suggest many more but they are plenty to be getting on with.
  
  Please can you suggest the best authors and titles you've found relating to failure, learning and our response to adversity because I'd like to deepen and apply my knowledge too. Thank you .

• A reply on Conversation: How can we best develop and encourage self-efficacy in children and young adults?

  Sep 27 2011: Thanks Frans. Will review when I've put my girls to bed as they have taken charge of the asylum upstairs!
  
  .... Just watched it.
  
  Thank you so much for recommending Kiran Bir Sethi's stunning talk. It's a wonderful example that gives a superb answer to my question. Thank you for leading the way Frans.
  
  Please keep your suggestions coming.
  
  Marcus
• +1

  A comment on Talk: Dan Gilbert: Why we make bad decisions

  Sep 27 2011: Recession! Collective hysteria that provides the correct expectations for pessimism to govern behaviour.
• +1

  A comment on Talk: Aimee Mullins: The opportunity of adversity

  Sep 27 2011: Aimee
  
  Our daughter Ana "is" deaf. Has "been" since birth. She can hear with hearing aids. She's amazing. She learned to speak without any discernible speech impediment. We discovered her "dis"ability when she was 4.
  
  Now she's 7, she plays the guitar and she's one of the 6 in 100 who start playing guitar and have the stamina and resilience to get good enough to knock out a clearly identifiable tune. She's composing her own songs this week.
  
  She's the only girl in her soccer team and plays a mean midfield, scoring a hat-trick (3 goals) on Friday night and missing another by an inch on Saturday.
  
  I'm minded of Temple Grandin's mother's words, "Different. Not less"
  
  If she believed she was only ever as much as other people told her she could be, she'd never live up to her fullest potential. If she treated her CONDITION of deafness as a disability by the Webster's definition, I shrink in fear at who she might become. Her indomitable will and realisation that her physical limitations are not able to limit her achievements, her talents, her creativity, her empathy or her competitiveness.
  
  Thank you for sharing your story. Ana's never treated her deafness as a disability. It's the hand of cards she's been dealt. She works with and around her challenges and i have yet to see her fail and quit at anything she really wants to achieve. She is "different and more" precisely because of her experiences and how she chooses to respond to them.
  
  It's humbling being able bodied and being born with a silver spoon in my mouth that I've wasted my health and fitness, squandered opportunity after opportunity and failed to seize life by the throat. I feel inspired and look forward to watching Ana continue to dance with her god.

• A reply on Conversation: Why do we repeatedly do what does us harm or doesn't serve us, even when we know by doing what we've done before we'll get the same result?

  Sep 5 2011: It is. You're right Sarah.
  
  There is no simple answer to this simple question.
  
  I feel it is a mix of emotions, habits, values, hormones, brain function and experience.
  
  Experience and deep practice, perfect practice seem to shed some light on how we can get better at making consistently good and moral choices. But they require attention ( see Rapt by Winnifred Gallgher, The Talent Code by Daniel Coyle, Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman, Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell and The Element by Sir Ken Robinson).
  
  My girls' gym has this on the wall. "You don't rise to the level of your dreams. You fall to the level of your training and your practice".
  
  It seems universal. The Fear of the future. It motivates so many of us to stay stuck. We paralyse ourselves with fear and go into a subroutine that offers short-term relief: rabbit in the headlights, over analysis, taking reflex action, passive aggressiveness, defensiveness, aggression, risk taking, drug taking, promiscuity, drunkenness, gambling, passivity. And we seek what feels familiar.
  
  That's is a thorny question. I see real examples of those I meet who show great resolve, personal courage and act as examples and role models I want my for my children, that I'd like to emulate. I believe the evidence and the way(s) is(are) out there.
  
  I also believe we should ask ourselves better questions even when we don't like the answers we night get back. Precisely because we don't like the answers. T`o mis-quoute the Rolling Stones, "You can't always get what you want, and it might be just what you need".
  
  I suspect there is a lot in asian philosophy, mediation and martial practices that mirrors this process as I sense this is a path to a secular version of enlightenment. Can anyone shed any light on this line of thinking?
• +3

  A reply on Conversation: Why do we repeatedly do what does us harm or doesn't serve us, even when we know by doing what we've done before we'll get the same result?

  Sep 5 2011: Charles, thank you. I'm by no means an expert, and have only read secondary sources, but the research certainly does point to dopamine as one source to look for answers to my question.
  
  I'm not sure of the protocol on here, but I always appreciate a good read and value recommendations to qualified sources from others who share my passions and interests. You may be interested to read:
  
  Brene Brown - I Thought It Was Only Me
  Margaret Heffernen - Willful Blindness
  Hannah Holmes - Quirk
  Harriett Braiker - Who's Pulling Your Strings
  Dan Ariely - Predictably Irrational
  Nassim Nicholas Taleb - The Black Swan
  Johan Lehrer - How We Decide
  Michael Shermer - How We Believe
  Richard Wiseman - 59 Seconds
  Edward De Bono - How to Have a Beautiful Mind
  Jason Fried - ReWork
  
  I'm not qualified to validate the science, but the patterns throughout these books affirm what I see and experience daily in my life and in the lives of my clients and friends. Maybe I'm looking for what feels familiar myself, but I know as someone who has battled with falling prey to temptation (dopamine addiction).
  
  I do however have the ability to reason.
  
  Credit cards are toxic for this reason. Low short term interest followed by crippling interest for many years is a bad deal. But can my need for instant gratification (amygdala) be rationalised away (neocortex). It seems to depend on how I ask myself the question.
  
  If I buy this on my credit card I can pay it off later, can't I?
  
  Or
  
  If I buy it now but can only pay for it in cash will I be happy losing the money to have this object now?
  
  When faced with the choice of charging my trophy purchase to my anonymous, deferred pain-payment credit card or paying with the bundle of cash, it's easy to skim over the pain later. In my work and in my life I find that my decisions are usually more strongly motivated by my fear of losing instead of my pleasure from gaining. Buying decisions seem to be routinely governed by this dynamic to the tune of 2:1.
  
  Thoughts?

• A comment on Conversation: Why do we repeatedly do what does us harm or doesn't serve us, even when we know by doing what we've done before we'll get the same result?

  Sep 5 2011: Thank you all for your interesting contributions. I've identified some patterns borne out in recent research that are consistent with my understanding and experience.
  
  I routinely catch myself making terrible choices, I know at a rational, logical level aren't good for me. Worse still, I, without exception know deep down how my choice will affect others or those I genuinely want to serve. Someone else will pay the negative price (deferred consequences) for my positive payoff (short term gratification). From flossing to paying by credit card for goods you don't want but the imagery or the offer was too shiny resist.
  
  Was it my amygdala being hijacked? Is my lack of self-control something I can learn to reprogram?
  
  Thomas, you're in good company. Aristotle's elegantly simple, “We become just by performing just actions, temperate by performing temperate actions, brave by performing brave actions." And as someone who has to swallow my own medicine I know how tough doing that is for me so I have a lot of empathy for others who don't share your resolve & get tempted.
  
  Being distracted by some sweeter treat or shinier muse goes some way to to helping resist temptation. Imminent proximity to the potential loss I might suffer seems to motivate me far more greatly than the potential gains I might enjoy. I act as the polar opposite of the rational consumer. I'm absolutely not a rational being. I'm usually a slave to my habits and my emotions. I'm drawn to what feel s familiar like a moth to the flame, confusing danger with succour, addiction for relief, deeper loss incurred by greater risk taking in the vain hope that my luck may overcome my increasingly blinkered bad choices. I know when I have my views disproved, I've found (irrational) reasons for my old (wrong) beliefs to be reinforced, as if letting go of them is too painful.
  
  I'm happy with who I am. I'm not happy with all my choices. I'm able but my choices are often mind-numbingly, earth shatteringly stupid. Just me?

• A comment on Talk: Shukla Bose: Teaching one child at a time

  Jun 28 2011: One child at a time is inspirational. It is an elegantly simple beginning. I look forward to seeing Parusharam on camera at Ted soon