MICHAEL McGAULLEY, J.D.

Michael McGaulley, J.D., is the author of a series of technothrillers including  A REMEDY FOR DEATH,  THE GRAIL CONSPIRACIES,  and the related self-help book,  JOINING MIRACLES: Navigating the Sea of Intended Synchronicities.

THE INFINITE DOUBLECROSS: The French Riviera. Art theft, art forgery, artful duplicity. A “perfect guy” (or is he?), and a vacationing techie who finds herself caught up in a tangle of duplicity and doublecross: If she can’t trust herself, who can she trust?

 

 He is also the author of business and career books drawn from his work as a management consultant and lawyer. These  include    SMART QUESTIONS : People Skills for Winning the Games of Career Success (& Office Politics!);  SELLING 101, and others.   MORE AUTHOR BIO

  

For more on the THRILLERS and TECHNOTHRILLERS, including background and SAMPLE CHAPTERS

For more on the BUSINESS and CAREER BOOKS, including background and SAMPLE CHAPTERS

For more on the SALES TRAINING BOOKS and GUIDES, including SAMPLE CHAPTERS

The blog posts below link to some of the research in preparing to write the various books, as well to continuing developments in related fields.

The Games They Play in Military Training

After law school  I went into the military, I wasn't very good at soldieriing: I had trouble with things like knowing the difference between my left foot and my right.

I wasn’t the only person in basic who had problems like that —  particularly when we had a  sergeant in our faces,  yelling how dumb we were, that we had to be faking it, that nobody could be so awkward and so stupid.

This after maybe three or  four hours of  sleep -- and maybe not even that because of guard duty and middle-of-the-night fire drills.

I found myself pondering a question much like the question I’d pondered in law school:  If they really want us to learn the important things, then why bug us with all this petty stuff about which way to hang our shirts and roll our underwear?  Beyond that, why not let us get enough sleep so we can think clearly?

But again, as in law school,  I was missing the point of the covert game underway:  The ultimate object of the military training game is not so much to teach soldiers to start off on the proper foot, or to hang uniforms a certain way, as it is force them to learn that they could cope with pressure and still function by pushing beyond fatigue, fear, and pressure.

That came to mind  when I came on this article via Zite (on-line magazine/app) yesterday:  "Why Are Military Boot Camps So Intense?" Link 

It was written by a Marine drill sergeant and makes pretty much the point I had arrived at: Yes, certain book-learning could be done better in a quiet classroom, but the Marines are training for something beyond that. 

In other words, the "game" of basic is partly to teach important stuff like the difference between left and right, but also to teach the new soldier to learn to function under fatigue and high stress.

Which, I think, reinforces my overall point in HOW TO ASK THE SMART QUESTIONS FOR WINNING THE GAMES OF BUSINESS & LIFE: To learn to "look through" what's happening here and now to spot the larger "game"  that's under way.

Templates to accompany the book Smart Questions for Winning the Games of Business & Life

E-readers sometimes have difficulties in rendering visuals and templates. As  my book SMART QUESTIONS for Winning the Games of Business and Life includes  a variety of templates, I'm including larger copies of them here, in  case you have difficulty seeing them well enough on the screen.

The templates are in .PDF format, so you can print them out or use them as models to set up for yourself.

Download SQ templates for SMART QUESTIONS

 

If you already have the book SMART QUESTIONS, you'll see how these templates fit  into the process.

To   order an e-book edition of SMART QUESTIONS for instant download via Amazon Kindle.