40 Teaching Minds thinking? Nothing. He was thinking nothing. Correct action is rarely about thought, especially when little time for thinking is available. So, then, how do we teach people to do the right thing, especially when the right thing is not in line with their normal behavior? Can we teach nurturance, or aggression, or extroversion, or or- derliness? I hope that it is obvious that we cannot do this. People are born with these characteristics. They are not learned. Ask any parents of more than one child. They will respond that their children had certain personality traits that were apparent from birth. My grandson Milo is a neatnik. Everything has to be in its place. Also, he loves to perform in front of an audience. His parents do not share and did not teach him these behaviors. The degree to which we have such traits defines our innate personalities. So, we need to translate this question into one we can answer. The real issue is one of degree and not of kind. You will never teach someone who is fundamentally dishonest to be very honest, or vice versa. You will never teach someone who is very aggressive to be very passive. What you can do is make people aware of the conse- quences of their actions and hope to change their behavior slightly, when they have the time to think about what they are about to do. You can make people aware of their behavior, and their rational selves can direct what they do, if they have time to think about. But their subconscious is likely to want them to behave differently, and it is their subconscious that is usually in charge in a pinch. Someone who hates details is not a good candidate for being taught to read contracts in detail. Similarly, someone who loves de- tails is not a great candidate for sales rep. (Why? Because being very people-oriented is actually a characteristic that never goes hand in hand with being detail-oriented.) So, it is not uncommon for com- panies to be faced with the arduous task of training thei