Immediate Gratification
Immediate Gratification
Meet Your Host, Alan Weiss
Alan Weiss is one of those rare people who can say he is a consultant, speaker, and author and mean it.
His consulting firm, Summit Consulting Group, Inc., has attracted clients such as Merck, Hewlett-Packard, GE, Mercedes-Benz, State Street Corporation, Times Mirror Group, The Federal Reserve, The New York Times Corporation, Toyota, and over 500 other leading organizations. He has served on several boards of directors in various capacities.
His prolific publishing includes over 500 articles and 60 books, including his best-seller, Million Dollar Consulting (from McGraw-Hill) now in its 30th year and sixth edition. His newest is Your Legacy is Now: Life is not about a search for meaning but the creation of meaning (Routledge, 2021). His books have been on the curricula at Villanova, Temple University, and the Wharton School of Business, and have been translated into 15 languages.
Get to know AlanShow Notes
- Gratification is pleasure
- Immediate means done at once
- Why do we seek this:
- To avoid delay in important matters personally/professionally. Evolutionary need for food, protection
- A fear of opportunity lost
- Impulsivity. Especially as we age. If not now, when?
- Intellectual curiosity.
- Poverty, desperation
- Boredom. Here’s a new shiny object.
- The alternative of long hard work (I can make money selling cars now, being an engineer would take six years.)
- The trouble is that it is often temporary. (The dog toy breaks.) Other people have the same thing. The novelty wears off.
- Often generates anti-social behavior—breaking into a line, theft.
- In the longer term is unfulfilling, creating more disappointment.
- Undermines all patience even when required: recovering from an illness, waiting for a delayed plane, even waiting at the deli counter.
- Impulse purchase items are placed near the cashier in stores or at the end of aisles.
- Can cause health problems (stress, ulcers) waiting for an acceptance to college, a job offer, a club membership.
- Isn’t a realistic view of life, even when successful. Often depends on factors out of one’s control.
- The key, perhaps: Fine on the minor stuff, a gamble on middle stuff, can be fatal on the major stuff.
- Don’t forget, this is an age when kennels and shelters force potential animal adopters to qualify!
Alan Weiss’s The Uncomfortable Truth® is a weekly broadcast from “The Rock Star of Consulting,” Alan Weiss, who holds forth with his best (and often most contrarian) ideas about society, culture, business, and personal growth. His 60+ books in 12 languages, and his travels to, and work in, 50 countries contribute to a fascinating and often belief-challenging 20 minutes that might just change your next 20 years.
Introduction to the show recorded by Connie Dieken
