In a recent leadership summit I asked the participants this question: What defines a 'bull market'?

As this was not a Wall Street firm the managers looked surprised and eventually someone said: "I thought we were in a leadership meeting not in a seminar about investing. What does a 'bull market' have to do with the leadership and personal development conversation we were engaged in just a few minutes earlier?"  

"They have absolutely everything to do with each other. The core principles and patterns at the foundation of all things are the same. Unlock these patterns and you discover the secret for all things", I replied.

The managers yielded and started throwing out answers to my question. "A bull market is defined by: higher demand, higher prices, growing public interest, Increasing profits, more money chasing less goods, increasing greed, mass psychology coming to a tipping point, and rising market valuation." 

What defines a "Bull Market"?
"These are all good responses but not the one we are looking for", I said. "The purest technical definition for a bull market is: 'Higher Lows'. Let me explain. Technical analysis shows the price movement of the item in question. Typically the item, be it a company stock or a commodity, oscillates between a 'High Point' and a 'Low Point'. You can identify these patterns on charts. In a classic bull market there are both 'higher lows' and 'higher highs' which defines the upward going channel of the bull. 'Higher Lows' means that the low points of the price movement are trending higher- that the most recent low point is higher than the previous low point. In the same way 'higher highs' is when the last high point is higher than the previous high point. The 'Bull Channel' becomes evident by connecting the dots of the 'higher lows' at the bottom and the 'higher highs' at the top. These are called the 'return lines', used by traders for entry and exit points."

At times the bull market doesn't develop in a classic way and does not form a clear upward channel with new higher prices.  How do we know then if there is or there isn't a bull market or whether the bull market is ending? The critical measure, the purest technical definition is that for as long as it makes 'higher lows' the bull market is intact. When the item's price continues to make 'higher lows', it will at some point, force the item to also make 'higher highs'.  If on the other hand the line of 'higher lows' is penetrated with a 'lower low' point, technical analysis says that the bull movement is broken.  

Now, how is this principle relevant in relationships, in personal development and in customer service? Why shouldn't we focus on higher highs? Isn't personal development about creating peak experiences?

Let's take these one at a time.

Customer Service Rule Number One
Here is what the latest research about customer service tells us. Company A delivers 18 incidents of 'great' customer service. It also delivers 2 service incidents that 'really suck'. Company B on the other hand delivers 20 incidents of 'good' customer service. Which brand reputation is better? Which customer service is stronger? It turns out that customers prefer 20 'good' experiences over 18 'great' experiences and two that 'really suck'. Hence, rule number one for customer service is "don't suck". Don't go below the line.  

Great Relationships - Clean Up the Low Points
Don was a loving father and a warm and understanding husband but once every few weeks he had a burst of bad temper and anger. He never physically hurt anyone in these verbal spouts of rage but it was scary and his family learned to back off and shut down in the face of them. When these bouts happened he would suddenly become a different person only to settle down again after ten minutes. Don usually apologized shortly after these incidents and would become loving and warm again, but the echo of that moment of rage would linger in the house for days. The memory of it would not go away. Don's family suffered. It made the relationships unpredictable. They knew the next episode could happen at any minute. The threat of a "lower low" was always present.

High points are very important for a relationship. Joy, love, humor and intimacy replenish and recharge the relationships. But trust is not built by the high points. To build sustainable relationships you have to clean up the low points, take responsibility and turn them into higher lows. You build trust, dependability and confidence by demonstrating the points you won't go below, by creating a trace of higher lows. This trace of higher lows shows you care enough to be working on yourself to offer the relationships better safety and guarantees. 

Personal Development - The Walk In The Valley And Peak Experiences
Research about the anatomy of transformation reveals the importance of peak experiences. These experiences create a marker, a sign post of what we can aim for. We all love to be in top form, to be in a state of flow where the seemingly impossible is not just possible but appears to be easy. The memorable impression of these states of connectedness and flow help us move in that direction again. We continue to seek out the next high point to relive the energetic well being, joy and can-do grace we experienced. But the true measure of development is not in the high point of these peak experiences. The true measure of development is in the following morning or week when you walk in the valley again and have shifted from the expanded state of the peak experience to your day to day moments. Here again, the bull market principle kicks in. Your development is measured by your standards. The meaning of the word is what hard floor do you stand on; what you stand-(h)ard on is the safe floor, the point below which you won't go.

Take Action

1. First, recognize the low points in your life and relationships and determine to do something about them.
2. Second, tidy up unfinished business; clean your desk; apologize where you intended to but have not gotten around to it yet; fix the squeaking door. This is the necessary maintenance work to help you stay intact and resilient.
3.  Third, get to work towards the high points and as you do, clean up the low points. Create for yourself your dashboard alerts of when you need to take care of you so that you don't allow yourself to go below your intended standards.
   
   Now it's your turn. Be your own leader. Turn the key. Make 'higher lows' and 'higher highs'. Create a bull market in your own life and relationships.

 © Aviv Shahar