Change Your Brain Every Day - Entitlement Cure - How to Break the Grip of Entitlement by Instilling Accountability and Responsibility with Dr. John Townsend

Episode Date: January 11, 2017

If there's one thing that keeps people from succeeding, it's their sense of entitlement. And that's what we're going to discuss today. Why is this entitlement so detrimental to developing responsible and accountable children or employees and how are we going to tackle this societal disease. Today's guest is an expert on this topic and he's written the book, The Entitlement Cure along with many other books.  Dr. John Townsend is a New York Times bestselling author, business consultant, leadership coach and psychologist. He has written or co-written 27 books, selling 8 million copies, including the Boundaries series; Leadership Beyond Reason; and Handling Difficult People. I'm sure you'll enjoy the insights in this episode so be sure to stick around. And if you haven't subscribe, be sure to subscribe to this podcast so you won't miss out on three other interviews we have with Dr. Townsend.  

Hi, I'm Donnie Osmond, and welcome to The Brain Warrior's Way, hosted by my friends Daniel and Tana Amon. Now, in this podcast, you're going to learn that the war for your health is one between your ears. That's right. If you're ready to be sharper and have better memory, mood, energy, and focus, well then stay with us. Here are Daniel and Tana Amon.

Hey, everybody. Welcome back. We are so excited you're with us. We have something very special planned today. So we have Dr. John Townsend, who is one of our close friends. He's amazing. You're going to love him. He's a New York Times bestselling author, business consultant, leadership coach, and psychologist. He has written or co-written 30 books, selling 10 million copies, including the famous Boundaries series, Leadership Beyond Reason, and his latest book, The Entitlement Cure. Which I'm excited to read. For more than 20 years, Dr. Townsend has engaged with leaders, organizations, individuals around the globe, offering them life-changing solutions to their problems.

He is a co-host of the nationally syndicated talk show, New Life Live, which I've been on, which is heard in 180 markets with 3 million listeners. John founded the Townsend Institute for Leadership and Counseling, which I teach at, which offers graduate degrees and credentialing in organizational leadership, executive coaching, and counseling. He is the clinical director of the American Association of Clinical Counselors. Dr. Townsend coaches families and family businesses. He also works with leaders and organizations. Welcome, John. Great to be here, guys. So I love the title of your new book. I just have to tell you because

I've always heard this term and it's how we try to raise our 13 year old that entitled people can't be happy. So talk to us about the entitlement cure. Well, it's a book about that very that very thing, Tana, is that I saw in our culture and in our families and in the organizations I consult with businesses, the kind of disease I'm going to call the disease entitlement, and it's been costing billions of dollars in revenue and employees, also with parenting and family issues, it's been devastating. And entitlement, the way I, when I researched it, it has two characteristics. These are the ones that kind of everybody can relate to.

First is the attitude that I'm not responsible for how I impact you. If I let you down, if I don't make promises, if I frustrate you, if I make it all about me and you don't like that, that's your problem, not mine. I don't really have any responsibility for how I impact you emotionally or financially or personally. The second thing is that I deserve special treatment, and I don't have to work for what I get because whatever I do because I'm on the planet, I get special treatment. I don't have to stand in the back of the line. I just get in front of that line. And on a psychological level, when you put those two attitudes together, you get a disease called a typhoid. I absolutely love that. It's just a great topic. We know several people like that. And yes, you can build that in people

by not making them responsible, by giving them too much without having them do their part. But what do you do about it? Well, that's kind of what the book's about. I wanted it to be a really practical book to give people skills. So I have seven or eight skills in the book

to help people deal with it. But the core issue that I keep saying over and over again in the book is that when people understand that there's an easy way to live life and there's a hard way, don't go the easy way. You know, people try to take shortcuts and take microwave answers to things and lose 30 pounds in one day and raise a kid one afternoon and build a career in one

day. Everything takes time. Life is not a microwave it's an oven so do things the hard way face right and can i tell you one of the skills that i think has been shown a lot of all around the country please do well it's simple it's called do the next hard thing now let me ask you a question now tell your mom and um when you when you're with your kids do you say to your child now you really can't have your your broccoli until you eat your ice cream first you've got to have the ice cream before the broccoli yeah definitely not we don't have ice cream but right the idea is that no self-respecting mom is going to say we we'll give you something, some kind of a pleasurable thing. You've got to eat the broccoli first because that's the way life is.

Life is broccoli first and then the good thing, the dessert afterwards. Right. And we have a culture that says, no, eat the ice cream first. I'll give you an example. Like in business, so much of our work is in business. Think about Monday morning, show up in the office, and everybody's hanging around in the coffee break room, talking about the soccer games and the movie you were in.

And you kind of finish your catching up. And then you've been kind of dreading going to the laptop or the desktop, but you know what's on there. It's your agenda for the day. And you've got, oh, gosh, you've got to report this to you today. That's going to be fun. And then you've got a tough meeting. That's not going to be fun. You've got a client that's mad at you. You've got to schmooze that client and make them happy. You've got a lot of things you're really, really not looking forward to. So you know what we do? We go and empty our

inbox and get all the inbox things deleted because there might be a prince from a third world country who wants to give you $50 million. And all he needs is your credit card and your social. So, you know, I've got to get that. So we spend all this time in, in, in the psychological world, we call it obsessive avoidant behavior. It's not because I need to clean out my inboxes. Cause I don't want to have that bad report that I got it right. And smooth is that customer and have that meeting. And if I'll do those things, I get better. Now, I study very successful people.

I put my clinical hat on and I study. What do they do? Because I want to learn their secret sauce so that I can help my clients be more successful too. And every one of them, the uber successful ones that run billion-dollar corporations, I'll say to them, well, how was your morning? They'll go, it was awful. It was hard. I had this client I had to talk to and make him, you know, finish, you know, not ruffle their feathers.

They had to write their support. I don't like reports. I had a tough meeting. I'll go, nice. That sounds a lot. How was your afternoon? They'll go, afternoon? Afternoon was great.

I got creative. We got the big board out. We brainstormed. I got with some smart people. We planned some new products. Had a great lunch with some people. Why is that? Because they ate the broccoli before the dessert.

So successful people look at their day and they go, I want to do the hard thing first, not the easy thing. So, John, I have a question, as I like that. So I was always the mean mom growing up when my daughter was growing up. And she would, you know how kids do this, you know, it's not fair. It's not fair. But I had always heard that entitled people can't be happy. And so, and you know, you live near us and in our area, I think it's a huge problem. We see these kids that have, we think so much so early and without appreciating what they have. But with that, it's not fair. I would always tell my daughter, well, fair, whoever told you life is fair, fair is this place with bad food and farm animals. What are you doing to make the world a better place? And that's what we sort of planted

in her head early. What are you doing to make it better? So instead of it's not, you know, it should be fair. You should be given whatever you want to make life fair. What are you doing to make it better? What do you think about how we are raising our kids? You're making an unentitled, successful, highly responsible young person. In fact, you just addressed another one of the skills, which is to change the way our speaking is. You guys study the brain. I study the brain. And one thing we found out is that what you say affects your behavior, just like your parents. And I told, and I'm telling people the book, there's a phrase I want them to get rid of their head and substitute it. Very much like what you're saying about fairing and all that.

Hear this. Don't let your kids or your employees or your friends or your spouse say the following words. I deserve X. I deserve to be happy. I deserve a great marriage. I deserve, because I deserve means I'm going to sit there and wait for somebody to give it to me. My parents or the government or my friends or somebody I deserve means, you know, you're going to give me something that I'm powerless. A very disempowering statement.

But switch out I deserve and say this. I am responsible. I love that. I am responsible for empowering. I'm responsible to make good grades. I'm responsible. If I want a good marriage, I've got to be a healthy person and not be a wacko. I've got to pick up my socks in the morning.

I'm responsible to do my part. I'm responsible to work hard and get training and save my money to be a successful person. And when we change from the disempowering I deserve to the empowering I'm responsible, the actions change too. So you're doing exactly the right thing. I love that. Talks about responsibility, not in a blame way, but in your ability to respond to the situation and blame. So my first book many, many years ago, it's called The Sabotage Factor, all the ways we mess ourselves up from getting what we want in life. And the number one hallmark of self-defeating behavior I wrote about in the book was blaming other people for how your life is turning out. Makes you a victim. As soon as you do that, you're a victim and you can't change anything. So it sounds similar. Very, very similar. It's very empowering

to say it that way, yes. So, so many of us have kids that are entitled, employees that are entitled, and perhaps we set it up that way unconsciously. Well, what do you do now? If I'm working with an older child or I'm working with an employee, what are some practical steps to take? Well, first off, you got to understand or kind of diagnose how severe is the problem. Some people are just kind of like minorly entitledlement like you know i know what i know what i'm entitled in and my wife and kids and friends always tell me and i'm always working on because i think i've got sort of minorly that's wrong and some people have moderate entitlement somehow people have severe entitlement well people with minor entitlement all you gotta do is make them aware and you show up at the

offices or you show up at the bedroom door of the kids say um it's kind of hard around the family because we want you to be a team member and there's so much i in your words can you start like thinking it's that i and a minorly moderately i mean a minor person who just doesn't have a lot of time will go yeah i've been stressed lately thanks for reminding right now somebody who's moderate to severe, you've got to do more. You start off that way, but a lot of times they'll say, well, forget you, or you don't understand

why you're picking on me. And then you have to say, no, I'm serious. And you give them what's called an impact statement. Let me tell you what the impact of your behavior is. Don't have done to us.

Our company's lost money. We just lost the Smith deal. That was a half million dollar deal because of retirement. That's a hard thing for me. And so we give them the impact statement and then the moderately a type of personal goal. I'm really in fact, yeah, people don't want to be around you. Then you're okay. The third part is when you have to go to limits and consequences and boundaries. And that's when you have to say, if this behavior

keeps on, we're going to take you through a probation or a timeout or a loss of consequences. So some people are affected just by words and reminders. Some people are affected by the impact they have on others. Some people just need limits and consequences. Awesome. I like consequences. The book is called The Entitlement Cure by our friend, Dr. John Townsend. Pick it up. Is it out yet?

It's been out for a while. Oh, good. I'm so excited to read it. About nine months, I believe. Oh, good. I'm excited to get do it. About nine months, I believe. Oh, good. I'm excited to get it. Great. Thanks for listening, everybody.

Thanks for listening to today's show, The Brain Warrior's Way. Why don't you head over to brainwarriorswaypodcast.com. That's brainwarriorswaypodcast.com, where Daniel and Tana have a gift for you just for subscribing to the show. And when you post your review on iTunes, you'll be entered into a drawing where you can win a VIP visit to one of the Amen clinics.

I'm Donnie Osmond, and I invite you to step up your brain game by joining us in the next episode.