Hillary Clinton: A Case of "Fearful Aggression"

Hillary Clinton + Anticipatory Rejection + Fearful Aggression

= Lost Presidential Bid

Before I get into the above formula and something you should never do, I want to begin with something that is its polar opposite and something you should always do.

And that’s called a “Power Thank You.” Whereas
Anticipatory Rejection and Fearful Aggression are brimming with
paranoia, defensiveness and hostility, a Power Thank You is filled to
overflowing with humility, graciousness and generosity.

A Power Thank You has 3 parts, which I will demonstrate to the blogging aggregator site, Basil & Spice, the #1 Syndicated Author & Book Views On a Healthy Life!!! and then to the quarterlife, social networking site, Peoplejam.

1. Thank person for something they specifically did for you – “Thank you Basil & Spice and Peoplejam for continuing to promote my
blogs at or close to your home page, which has resulted in their being
picked up weekly or more often at such sites as Reuters, USA Today, Digg!, Propeller, Stumble.”

2. Acknowledge the effort it took for them to do it – “To Basil & Spice and Peoplejam. You both took the time and man
hours to reproduce my blog with typos fixed, you precede my blog with
all sorts of biographical information, and most importantly have
consistently selected my blogs when you have hundreds of to choose
from, from many sources.”

3. Tell them what it personally means to you – “I have spent many dollars on marketing and PR over the past twelve
years and the return has been spotty causing me to feel very cautious
and even foolish. Having this relationship with both of you has helped
restore the faith and trust I would like to have in resources such as
yours and eased my paranoia, which I have never liked having.”

Now back to what you should learn from Hillary Clinton and something you should (and she should) never do.

Anticipatory rejection is a state of mind where you believe that regardless of what you say,
people will push back, counterattack, minimize, deny, become defensive,
make excuses, blame or use some other tactic to reject whatever comes
out of your mouth and also deny responsibility (one can only imagine
the exchanges between Hillary and Bill towards the end of his second
term).

It
is usually based on the experience of years – if not a lifetime –of
people pushing back at you and not accepting what you say and then
coming to believe that it will always be that way and acting
preemptively.

Fearful aggression is a behavior and something that show dog trainers know well and that we all watched in the movie, “Best in Show.” It occurs when a tightly wound, highly pedigreed dog (or person) is cornered or frightened, and it reacts with aggression. To
the outsider the dog appears to be on the attack, but from inside the
dog, it is completely fueled by the fear of being attacked.

In
a nutshell, when you’re on the defensive (fueled by your anticipatory
rejection mindset and fearful aggression reaction) and nobody is
attacking you, you are perceived as being both on the offensive and paranoid…and you offend everyone.

And
the solution? Maybe an update on Freud's famous dictum: "Where id was,
let ego be" (ego as in being in touch with reality) is called for, such
as: "Where ego (self-righteousness) was, let graciousness be."

© 2008 Mark Goulston

If
this Usable Insight speaks to you and you or someone you know might get
in their own way, please join me for my free live webinar: Succeed in Your Career: Step 1 – Get Out of Your Own Way and Help Others Do the Same and check out my book: Get Out of Your Own Way at Work…and Help Others Do the Same.

View the my basilandspice blogs and peoplejamblogs.