Save Your Excuses

"If you don't want to do something, one excuse is as good as another." - Yiddish Proverb

When it comes to spending, saving, working, and rest, we find ourselves in a thicket of intents, inclinations, motivations, and opportunities. This post considers the role of excuses in our justifications to ourselves and other people for what we do—or don't do.

Defining Excuses

According to the American Heritage Dictionary excuse can mean ...

tr.v., -cused, -cus·ing, -cus·es.

1. 1. To explain (a fault or an offense) in the hope of being forgiven or understood: He arrived late and excused his tardiness in a flimsy manner.
   2. To apologize for (oneself) for an act that could cause offense: She excused herself for being late.

n. (ĭk-skyūs')

1. An explanation offered to justify or obtain forgiveness.
2. A reason or grounds for excusing: Ignorance is no excuse for breaking the law.

[Middle English excusen, from Old French excuser, from Latin excūsāre : ex-, ex- + causa, accusation; see cause.]

source: http://www.answers.com/topic/excuse

Chronic excuse making limits our ability to save and maintain solvency. Excuses only come into play when there is a promise or expectation either from oneself to oneself or from one person to another. It is a explanation for why the promise or expectation was not met. Thus, the explanation from the excuse maker (Ex) may have credence with the receiver (Re), or it may not. It pleads that Ex is a better person than their recent actions may imply.

Excuses form a type of punctuation for some people. They become their verbal transition between their promises, actions, and the present moment. Chronic excuse makers have attached excuses to their greeting, "Hi, sorry I'm late, I was stuck in traffic." What's especially dangerous for the person, and annoying and off-putting to their work associates, friends, family, spouses, and even parts of themselves, is when they don't wait for a reply. They become self-excuse makers, living their chaotic lives and randomly affecting people around them without much visible concern.

There are some questions that can help determine whether you can accept an excuse.

1. How severe was the harm? Typically, most excuses occur for what may seem to the Ex as a minor infraction. This may or may not jibe with the Re's views. Consider this dialog:

Re: Hi, Hon, where's the $100 we need to make this month's rent? It's due in 3 days.
Ex: Oh, Rent! I totally forgot and thought it was all taken care of.
Re: You mean you spent it.
Ex: Well, it was Pat's birthday, and we were all in a good mood. Look, it's no big deal, I'll pawn something. We'll be OK.
Re: Yeah, right, No Big Deal. I guess there's no money left for food, either. ...

Clearly, Ex and Re are on different scales as far as the significance of the spending. Now compare ...

Re: Hi, Hon, where's the $100 we need to make this month's rent? It's due in 3 days.
Ex: Oh, Rent! I totally forgot and thought it was all taken care of.
Re: You mean you spent it.
Ex: Yeah, I guess I spent it. It's a slip. I think I thought you said rent was taken care of.
Re: Well, I didn't, and neither is there money for food till we get our next checks.
Ex: Alright, I slipped. I blew the money at Pat's party trying to act like a Big Shot. Here's what I'll do, I have $40 in my pocket. Here, take it. I overheard someone say they had a couple of days of work. I'll see if I can do that. Maybe I'll stop hanging out as this has happened before.
Re: Well, this helps. Next time just leave your cash and credit cards with me before you go out. …

2. Does the Ex admit harm? You see this in the second example where the Ex says "I slipped. ..."

3. Does the Ex do something immediately to patch the relationship? In this example, Ex offer $40 left in his or her pocket.

4. Does the Ex at least make noises that they will amend their ways? In this example, Ex says they will stop going out with friends. This is too extreme as Re recognizes but jokes about holding Ex's credit cards and cash. Beware Excuse makers: Re is taking note of what Ex does going forward. Ex may not have much time in Re's gut to change their ways. 

How to Stop Making Excuses
Step 1: Know when you are making a promise. This means what you say matters. What you sign matters. For the great majority of promises don't expect trumpets and fanfare. Many promises that are broken and thus trigger the need to offer an excuse are very brief and seemingly off-hand. For example:

Okay, we're on for lunch Friday at 12:30 at Comfort Foods. That's your promise to be at the restaurant @ 12:30 on Friday. It's not a promise to call or text with a message that you are "running late."

Then there are those substantial, long-term promises common in our culture:
Yes, I'll sign this [rent, credit card, loan, mortgage, etc.] agreement. This is your promise to provide regular payments as defined in the contract. This is not a ritual after which they allow you access to credit or a place to live and you pay when you please, or only pay "when you have the money." As people learn when they miss these payments, the people and companies on the receiving end take these promises extremely seriously.

The takeaway: your word binds you, your signature binds you. You may feel relieved if you think you have an excuse, don't believe for a moment that your tardiness or missed payment is not factoring into how the Re will interact with you going forward.

Step 2: Do all within your power to keep your promises. To meet a promise requires attention to both your time and your actions. From the example if it take you 15 minutes to walk from your office to the restaurant, you alone have to protect that transition time. Thus, on you calendar show the appointment as filling the time from 12:10 to 2:00 to pad your time so you don't have to rush.

When it comes promises to make periodic payments (credit cards, loans, rent) the larger the payment, the more you have to accumulate a bit a time. For most people, the largest expense is housing so you may have to set aside half the rent from your first pay check and half from the second one.

As you spend money using credit cards or cash, keep a log of your spending with columns for the date, the item or service, and the amount, plus what category it was (food, clothing, fun, etc.) Just writing the amount down raises it to awareness, creates a moment for reflection, and makes each purchase just a bit more "costly" as you will need to take a moment to record what it was.

Step 3: Recognize that keeping promises is the balancing habit to chronic excuse making. All the tools for building habits apply, and this will be discussed in one of my next posts. That's a promise.

Buck$ta$h.¢r™ Baby Step Workshop Description

Here is my description of the project I began developing in Dec. 2011.

Project Name: Buckstasher™ Baby Step Workshops

Description: Buckstashers are single-sheet cash saving reminders that people carry with them in their wallets. Each Buckstasher is a folded 6.125 x 5.25 inches sheet of paper printed with information about the costs of borrowing on one half of the fold and suggestions for saving money on the other half. They provide a portable, concrete means of separating paper currency a person wants to set aside for savings. People learn what this system is, what is printed on Buckstashers and how to use them to increase their savings in "Baby Step workshops" that last less than five (5) minutes.

Project Lead: John Perkins, PH.D. Perkins relied on his 35 years of experience as a trainer and facilitator to develop Buckstasher Baby Step workshops. He also has a background in economics, market research, advertising, consumer engagement, and policy advocacy. Researchers seem puzzled on how to help people translate what they learn in a peer group, class, counseling or coaching session into permanent behavior change—something I have long experience with. Many materials and presentations could benefit from a healthy infusion of excitement and variety, which I also know something about.

Background: Poor people have suffered the effects of their limited financial literacy forever; it is only within the past 15 years that it has drawn significant attention from foundations, legislatures, and regulators. Recent reports document the egregious effects of the predatory lending industry.[1]^,[2] About 10,000 un-banked or under-banked adults live in King County. This highlights the success of the Seattle-King County Assets Building Coalition that has helped 47,000 people open accounts in recent years.[3] Having an account is a big step, the next step for many low-income people is putting money in their accounts:  

Generally, focus group participants were interested in financial education that would help them change their savings behavior, that is, that would help them learn ways to save given their income constraints …[4]

Buckstashers contributes to the development and practice of a single yet foundational skill (remembering to save at the point-of-sale) that people can use to gain control of their saving and inoculate themselves to the temptations posed by predatory loans and the enticements of retail marketing. Buckstashers uses emotional appeals similar to the ones that make predatory loans and overspending so seductive for some people. A few of these appeals are presented as "If … Then …" statement pairs:

If … the typical new payday loan account can be opened in less than 30 minutes and customers walks away with cash,           

Then ... workshop participants' experience has to be fast and concrete.

If … predatory lenders cares less about customers' ability to pay,

Then ... we help the customer care more for themselves.

If … the customer responds to immediate gratification,

Then ... we help customers pause to decide before they act.

If … the customers struggles to save money,

Then ... we will provide a tool to assist with that process.

Audience: This project will benefit adults focusing on improving their financial health and literacy or who want to avoid or untangle themselves from debt traps. In Seattle, there are many projects whose clients might be interested in this tool, such as, FareStart students and alums, new credit union members, Real Change vendors, transitional housing tenants, participants in financial literacy classes, etc. My goal is to present Buckstasher to 1000 people or conduct 100 presentations in one year, whichever is reached first.

The "Baby Step Workshop" format: This Baby Step workshop takes 4.5 minutes. To help hold attention and give everyone an immediate success, participants will be paid $1.25 for their 4.5 minutes, as shown in the script. The complete presentation could last 30 minutes to an hour as people linger informally after the Baby Step workshop to discuss the tool and ask questions. Here is the script for the workshop.

__________________________Begin Script _________________________

Opening: Hi, My name is John Perkins and I'm here to present a Baby Step workshop. Good news! I'm going to pay you what a livable wage for a single parent with one child would pay in 4.5 minutes. That's $1.25. And at the end I have an offer for tonight only.

By a show of hands, how many of you know someone who has ever used a payday loan, tax refund anticipation loan, or deliberately overdrew their checking account with no money in the bank?

 [Count hands] That's most of us. There are four legal ways you can get money: from your savings, by working, by selling something you own, and by borrowing it. When we borrow money, or get a loan—the same thing—we are buying money, so there's a cost. Some call it interest, some a fee, other companies call it a charge.

[hold up red side facing group] 

This red side of a Buckstasher shows some of the costs for borrowing $100 for one month. The best, of course, is not spending it. [Point to bottom row] You keep your $100. From savings, if you replace it in a month add a penny for missed interest. The worst is overdraft protection [point to top row]—that will cost you $30 plus the $100 you still owe.

After you've mastered baby step savings, initial one of these boxes on the lower left side when you pass this on to someone else.

When the red side facing up, this is money flowing out because it costs you to get that money [pull a few play bills out of opening]

But, turned the other way, [show green side] …

It reminds you to save! This has over a dozen tips or ideas for how to build your saving muscle. I'll leave you with 2 baby steps ...

You're out, you want something to eat. Don't get a soda, drink tap water instead. Then put $1 of what you saved by not buying the soda in here, and turn it greenside up. [demo this] That's yours. You just saved it.

Another example, and it's also our offer. We have the money to give you your $1.25. You've earned it. And tonight, a Buckstasher™, which costs 70¢, can be yours for a quarter. You can start your savings tonight with your dollar, put in it your Buckstasher™ … turn it green side up and put it in your wallet [demo these actions as you talk] and you are on your way!

Pay everyone. Continue ...  You're welcome to stick around and talk, but this on your own time …

__________________________End Script _________________________

January 2012 Project Status: Since conceiving of small, baby step sized workshops aimed at increasing financial literacy I have refined Buckstashers and reached out to my network of contacts. I have continued my research into the current state of adult financial literacy in the US.

Next Steps: The immediate next step is to conduct one or two focus groups and use the feedback to modify the presentation and tool.

I am looking for sponsorship to pay the salary, overhead and expenses involved in reaching 1000 people or conducting 100 presentations in the first year.

Please contact me to discuss ways you might support this project.

John Perkins, Ph.D.

Keep the Change Consulting (not affiliated with Bank of America)

206 524.4496

---

[1] Gary Rivlin, 2010, Broke, USA: From Pawnshops to Poverty Inc.—How the Working Poor Became Big Business, New York: HarperCollins.

[2] Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, 2009, "FDIC National Survey of Unbanked and Underbanked Households," available on 1/16/12 at http://www.fdic.gov/ householdsurvey/

[3] Kelly Gilblom, 2011, "Program Helps 'Unbanked' in King County Live Happily with Accounts," Puget Sound Business Journal, April 8, 2011, available 1/16/12 at http://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/print-edition/2011/04/08/program-helps-unbanked-in-king.html

[4] Jennifer Turnham, 2010, Attitudes to Savings and Financial Education Among Low-Income Populations: Findings from the Financial Literacy Focus Groups," Center for Financial Security University of Wisconsin-Madison, available 1/16/12 at http://www.randschool.com…/attitudes-savings-financial-education.pdf, p. 76.

My innovative Service Project Idea

I sent this to my network of contacts on Dec. 30.

Hi Friend, 

Hope your holidays were delightful and solvent.

My request. I have several innovative financial education/dialogue ideas that I'd like to refine. I am reaching out to my network to share my ideas and help me connect to people who help fund or host a pilot test of the innovation. There is a lot that can be done, so if you have the inclination you can also partner with me to launch the project.

Background. Thanks to Gary Rivlin's Broke, USA I am getting the specifics on legit "industries" that prey on our poorest citizens. It has reminded me of what anyone with attentive eyes can see: many poor neighborhoods though lacking in legit banks have an abundance of check cashers, pay-day loan storefronts, pawn shops and rent-to-own stores. Wasn't always the case, but is the current situation. Dig a bit, and many of these stores or predatory mortgage lending companies are owned outright or financed by the largest banks in the nation—Wells Fargo, Citibank, Fleet, Bank of America, and, before it's demise, Washington Mutual. For shame.

Many people use a payday loan company once and feel so uncomfortable that they got themselves in such a bind or felt a need for fast money that they don't do it again. That's not who the payday loan companies make their money on. As with any business, these companies make their money off repeat customers. Multiple times a year repeat customers. Customers who don't pay the loan when it falls due pay a fee to keep the loan in play, but that fee isn't applied to the principal, it just stretches the due day another spell, usually 2 weeks, sometimes a month. One man began with $800 loan and paid rollover fees regularly on Tuesday for 10 years! His account rep showed him his total fees, over $9,000!

The companies like that their regulars pay and pay, upwards of 545% annual rate or more. But customers are shielded from this harsh fact most of the time, though you can find signs with this rate posted in the lobby or on the wall of many of these companies' storefront locations. Payday joints encourage customers to think they are paying fees, not interest. But many don't really seem to care, they just feel an urgent need for cash. One said a payday loan was better than crack!

Right now, in King County, there are 50,000 no-account adults. These adults do not have an account at either a bank or credit union. Banks, and also credit unions, experience a conflict of profits. Though they could promote programs to help their customers decrease overdrafts and encourage the proper use of regular accounts, their overdraft fees or competitive payday loan products bring in more money!

Service action. Of course, there are many ways one could address this: direct action such as protests at the stores may actually backfire because many customers say they like the stores. Political activism?? Pshaw! The legislature is made up of people from the comfortable classes. They know little about payday loans, have the state's own debts to sort, and are the targets of intense lobbying whenever these laws come forward. The predatory lending companies were able to defeat an effort a few years ago to cap interest rates in Washington.

So, what's left? A person always has authority for themselves. That autonomy can be awakened and supported to take responsible actions. It can always be asserted at any time. 

I want to nudge customers of these predatory lending practices to start thinking about their personal authority/autonomy over their spending and saving. And begin taking small, personal action steps to get out of their debt traps.

 

Email me to see more details and schedule a time to talk more about it.

I'll blog on this idea as I learn more and matters progress at ktc-sfc.blogspot.com

Happy holidays and much luck & prosperity in 2012.

John

Payday Loans

12/12/2011

Thanks to Gary Rivlin's Broke, USA I am getting the specifics on "industries" that prey on our poorest citizens. It has reminded me of what anyone with attentive eyes can see: poor neighborhoods are lacking in legit banks but have an abundance of check cashers, pay-day loan storefronts, pawn shops and rent-to-own stores. Wasn't always the case, but is the current situation.

Of course, there are many ways to begin to address this.

Direct action against the companies in terms of protests, etc. might backfire because the research I've found says their customers actually like the stores. Customers like the convenient hours, open early before work, open late after work. Friday night, driving in Lynnwood, Washington I counted two open at 8:45 PM.

Customers say they like that in less than half and hour you can walk out with cash.

Customers say they like knowing what they have to pay and when it's due.

This isn't a time to rile the customers up to defend the "financial services" industry!

Well ok, that's out, what about political activism? The legislature is made up of people from the comfortable classes. They know little about payday loans or the type of binds less well-off people find themselves. They get donations and intense lobbying from the financial services sector. Besides, they have a huge state debt to work their way out of.

So, what's left? A person always has authority for themselves. It's not always active before they take out that first loan, but it can always be asserted at any time. Many people use a payday loan company once and feel so uncomfortable that they got themselves in such a bind or felt a need for fast money that they don't do it again.

That's not who the payday loan companies make their money on. As with any business, these companies make their money off repeat customers. Multiple times a year repeat customers.

The companies like that their regulars pay and pay, upwards of 545% annual rate. But customers are shielded from this harsh fact most of the time, though you can find signs with this rate posted in the lobby or on the wall of many of them. Customers think they are paying fees, not interest. Customers pay a fee to keep the loan in play, but that fee isn't applied to the principal, just stretches the due day another spell, usually 2 weeks, sometimes a month. One can keep doing this while trying to scrap together the full loan to repay. And keep doing it. The fees keep rolling in. One man began with $800 loan and paid fees regularly on Tuesday for 10 years! His account rep showed him his total fees, over $10,000! And he had a mortgage-free home. What's up with this?

I want to nudge regular users to begin thinking about their personal authority over their spending and saving.

More in later posts. 

Just Gotta Find Friends

Friends! Where did all mine go? Did I let some lapse, did some drift away? Did I miss that one key chance go cement a friendship due to being too honest about my interests, energy level, time, cash flow?

I'm starting this blogging series to chronicle my steps to find hang-out buddies in Seattle. Building friendships is one of my 2011 goals. How am I going about it? First, I constructed a Kaipa pyramid for myself on this theme. You'll see in the article that Kaipa poses four questions. I will use a shorthand here and invite you to look over the article for the full question form.

1. What is my north star/my genius? I have skills for friendship—I enjoy most live events like music, theater, readings. I listen well and have spent much of my life creating and sustaining discussion and support groups of various types.

2. What is my core incompetence? Related to friendship, paradoxically, I am independent! I tell myself "not to wait for the herd." I'll go alone, I'll be the first of my group. I am the positive version of introversion: I am content enough alone. I can conjure a friend in my imagination and that is nearly as good as hearing his or her voice.

Another part to this, I feel if I lack a 'purpose' for the call I may be interrupting the person and wasting their time. But hanging out is just that, it's primarily sharing time & space without agenda.

3. What adds energy when I feel zapped? Getting together in realtime is fun, improvisational, and open to possibilities.

4. What saps my energy and provides brakes or alarms? Arranging is tedious. I am not interested in Faceb**k, and Twi**er. People forget to return my calls. In this region, there's a provisional nature to commitments that I find leaves me uncertain whether a planned meeting will actually happen. I'd rather not bother and just buy my tickets and go.

Of course, I'm not new to these insights, or most of them, and it's my personality.

Following the process Kaipa presents, I completed my pyramid ... (click link for easier to read version)
So, here I am with my pyramid and what I discovered about my inner DNA for this, but, what am I TO DO because of it?

This is where the pyramid meets my life. My activities need to tack against being solo (the solo mojo triangle) towards the comrade triangle. To get there I quickly touch on longing for friends and use that feeling as a springboard. This leaves inviting as the active side. Becoming comrades signals I've finished the cycle.

Goal: some hang-out and activity buddies. Specifically, I would like to share the Ballard Jazz Walk next Friday with someone.

When folded into a four-side pyramid, holding the inviting side away from me and "looking" through the point aimed at my body I "see" inviting from the perspective of independence. For me, this reminds to take initiative. Send out invites far and wide and still be prepared to go it alone a few times. It also has to traverse the other three sides: longing, comrade, and solo mojo.

I can also see if others have any invitations out that I can respond. I checked craigslist personals and meetup for jazz and nothing is listed. So now, I've broadcast invitations to several groups to which I belong and I've reached out to specific friends who live in the neighborhood.

And today, I'll go buy my single ticket and get ready for who may join me. Or not.

Interested in learning more about how to make these pyramids or even join me for the BJW, email me at johnp at ktchange dot com

John

Health Care Bills/Law

The Senate's passage of the the first major overhaul of the US health insurance patchwork in over four decades is significant. I have spent the past dozen years learning how we came to have the crazy quilt patchwork we have. I have also read many journal articles about what the states have experimented with to work around it. A minor point, but I have concluded that health insurance is misnamed, and we would be better served to call it Injury and Illness insurance, because that identified the conditions that activate the coverage, like fire insurance covers in case of fire, flood insurance in case of floods, and so on.

First, some history. Unlike all the other national healthcare systems one hears about in other countries, the US tangle is 86% private insurance. And will remain so. This comes from the historical incident—and accident—of health insurance starting to circumvent limitations on salaries imposed by Congress during WW II. Large employers wanted to lure top talent with health insurance and other benefits. They began as an enticement. The Supreme Court gave it's blessings and soon the unions understood this could be something they could negotiate for their members, and well, the race was off and running.

Besides the money at stake (taxes, all the medical professionals, insurance and pharmaceutical companies' profits, the tax deductability of premiums, etc.) working folks like you and I have expressed strong preferences for the comforts of our current arrangement. The overwhelming majority of people with employer-based insurance like what they are able to get now. Polls and political commentary show that we want to keep our current health professionals, we want to have a lot of choice and access to specialists, we want to brag about having the latest techno gizmo used on us even if not exactly medically necessary.

There is also a curious lack of care about costs built into the current patchwork. Sure, at the aggregate levels everyone can see the costs of health services and insurance rising and rising. But savings won't happen in the aggregate on most things: physicians in particular has thought of themselves as businesses for decades and many are motivated by the profit motive. Insurance companies love having all that money to play with. So the savings will have to happen at the point of service.

Just recently, I had an eye exam and needed to get my prescription lenses updated. I went to several brick and mortar frames and lenses stores. At each I was asked if I had insurance as a first question. I said I was self-insured and using my flex plan. The lowest bidder for just two lenses in existing frames was $240. The highest was close to $600 for just the lenses. Online, frames with the lenses go for less than $50. The price where insurance was expected to pay is close to 5 times higher!

Another quick example, when doctors order tests to "rule out"conditions of illnesses of very low probability the cash still flows into their pockets and to every along the testing and reporting back chain.

The Massachusetts Example

When MA set the bar in 2006 for what can be enacted into law to reduce the number of uninsured people, it accepted that most people receive health insurance from their employers. They also accepted that people without insurance do get the emergency care they need when the circumstance are dire enough: accidents, drug or alcohol overdose, sever physical symptoms, etc. That care costs someone something. The prime motives in the legislation was to reduce the number of MA citizens without insurance and to get more people in for care at an earlier stage of their injury or illness.

Several things happened in MA that failed to happen in Congress. First, the opening salvo in that state was the Roadmap to Coverage (R2C) white paper jointly sponsored by Blue Cross and Blue Shield. In a tightly reasoned and carefully calculated document, the R2C laid out the current costs being borne in MA for health care services to people who had no insurance.

So the R2C said, look, it costs so much to provide this care now. How is this being paid for? it asked. Here's how: uncompensated services from healthcare professionals, write-offs by hospitals, various subsidies, lost time at work, etc. Then the R2C took a clever rhetorical turn. It made a series of proposals for insuring more people, and with each proposal it showed how many people the suggestion would cover and how much it would save or transfer from elsewhere in the medical care patchwork.

To encourage preventive and regular care (from the Western medical model point of view), it proposed people with publicly supported insurance have a "medical home," that is, a designated clinic or doctor where they would go to receive care. To sweep in the last few people not caught by its other strategies, the R2C proposed subsidized premiums and as a last resort, a tax penalty on anyone without insurance who did not qualify for a waiver. If, the R2C said, MA put these ideas into place virtually everyone would have coverage.

Congress seems to be stumbling towards what MA has demonstrated without the benefit of something like the R2C proposal in front of opinion leaders and the media.

From reading blogs and talking to people it seems everyone will find something to be unhappy with in the final bill and law that will ultimately get passed. Maybe that's as it should be, as we're all in this together and everyone should be required to do their part.

Where's the Healing Belief?

[This case study shows one successful example of Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP)]

Sophie (all identifying details are changed) complained one evening about her disappointment that specialists couldn't operate on her ears to end her stuttering. I perked up, and told her I am a Master Practitioner of Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP). I have used NLP to help people heal allergies, performance anxiety, dyslexia, overeating, tobacco addiction, and the inability to experience orgasms. I shared a few stories about my work and offered to trade sessions: her motivational interviewing skills for my NLP skills.

Warning! Don't start that way—my bragging may have incited her, unconsciously, to "knock me down a peg." A better path would have been to direct her to articles on NLP and stuttering for her to evaluate before agreeing to my help.

We agreed to trade four sessions. My sessions with her were difficult. She really believed in the numbers and diagnoses offered her by western medical science. For the third session I came ready with a method to try. She only went through the motions without imagination, intention or investment. She smiled as we finished as if to say, "Is that the best you have?" and admitted that she really hadn't been into it.

Here I paused for a long time. She believed that experts shouldn't have to stop and think (remember that poor start!). I defended my right to think, and kept thinking.

Something very powerful sat behind that smile. She said she felt her problem had a biological cause, meaning that it was permanent and unchanging. Yes, that was the belief. Thus the desire for surgery because that would be a biologically-based intervention.

But, she had already mentioned two counterexamples (instances when the problem didn't occur). I reminded her, "If, as you say, it is biological and something that never changes, then you should stutter all the time. The biology should prevent you from talking fluently to animals or fluently when imitating someone."

Her turn to pause. She admitted that was right. She said I had destroyed the belief structure she had built her whole life around. I apologized for destroying her belief (this time remembering to stay one-down and cautious). That ended the third session. We never had a fourth.

When we crossed paths two months later she spoke fluently. I stood amazed. "I want to thank you. I've gone from about 70% fluent to 90-95% fluent. And I was totally resistant!" she beamed. What made the difference? "When you helped me realize that it wasn't biologically based."

Many people limit their ability to permit a change (that is, healing) because their belief about their suffering only includes a few ways a change process might work. Bringing the client face-to-face to times when the belief does not hold true may be the only key she needs for her transformation.