AT&T commissioned a poll of consumers 16-65 who drive at least once per day.

70% of them use their phones while driving.  In other words, if you don’t use your phone to text daily, you are in the minority 30% category.

Texting and driving has been identified as being even more harmful than driving under the influence.

Living in a distracted world can be hazardous to our health and to our relationships with others and ourselves.

The 70% figure probably didn’t surprise you, but these below surprised me.

33% of those in the AT&T survey email while driving.

28% surf the net.

27% do Facebook.

17% snap a selfie or photo (yes, while driving).

14% log into Instagram.

14% Twitter.

12% shoot video while driving.

11% use Snapchat.

And 10% do video chat like FaceTime.

All these things are good on their own.

They are just not as good when they lead to deadly multitasking.

The cure is to use social and digital media as a tool.  To separate not integrate them with other things like taking a walk, dining with others, socializing and yes, driving.

To live in the present, we must try harder to be in the present.

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You have to have wood or something flammable to make a fire.

Kindling to ignite the flames.

Oxygen to feed it and allow it to burn.

And you’re going to have to tend to it constantly to make sure it burns strong and doesn’t burn out.

This also applies to reigniting a relationship.

Often life gets in the way of our interpersonal relationships and we think the flames are extinguished when they really need the ingredients to make them burn.

There are a lot of complicated ways to look at keeping meaningful relationships alive and then there is this.

Feed it.

Nurture it.

Give it room to breath.

Keep a watchful eye on it to make sure it never flames out.

Relationships take work. They don’t stay bright on their own without paying watchful attention to the needs of others and our own needs.

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In colonial days, when a settler’s barn burned to the ground, other settlers from miles away would descend on the land to rebuild it – to make a project of it, and cap it off with a celebration.

Labor was hard to come by back then.

Over the decades being a friend has changed.  We collect friends like flowers on Facebook, Instagram and social media but these friendships are different.  More like associations.

Baby boomers will remember writing and receiving letters in the mail.

Gen Xers may remember that, too, or using email like regular mail composing the content the same way just faster.

Millennials are in constant contact with each other primarily through texting and social media.  New research reveals that they check their phones every 30 minutes – often more.

Friendships take time and time is the one thing almost all of us do not have enough of.  When was the last time you were bored?

Social media friendships are rewarding in their own way.  Instagram pictures bring a magic to real time and help us transcend the miles.

But for any friendship that we deem really special we must be willing to devote the time to nurture and enjoy it in the present.

That may include the connectivity of social media but requires face to face experience without distractions.

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Making the dean’s list doesn’t mean you’ll be successful.

The man who started FedEx – yes, FedEx – got a C for the paper that outlined his someday dream.   Maybe his professor should have gotten an F.

Lots of viewers don’t assure happiness to the TV star although it is likely to make them lots of money.

We are overly obsessed with metrics, numbers, and research studies.

But research didn’t bring you the iPhone, iPod, iPad or Apple Watch, a gut feeling by Steve Jobs did.

By trying to best our best time on the treadmill or to run a mile, we are not necessarily making ourselves happier.  Being healthy should make us happier.

Even a $5,000 raise doesn’t feel the same way a year later as it did when it was granted.

The joke is a new car feels best until the first payment needs to be made.

Numbers are interesting and useful, but chasing numbers is no guarantee for happiness.

That comes from chasing dreams.

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Not by arguing, for sure.

Not by reacting in any way.

By ignoring their rudeness and putting distance between yourself and them.

Ever wonder how rude people get to continue to be jerks even as everyone around them knows what they are?

Because giving them added oxygen keeps them going.

Ignoring them and removing yourself from them deprives them of the attention they want – and that’s really their end game.

If the insult takes place in front of others, better yet.  Don’t react.  Remove yourself.  Leave the rude person to fumble with their inappropriate comments.

If it takes place privately, do all you can to not acknowledge the comments.

One thing.  If the jerk is your boss, same rules apply.  More so.

We have more control over rude people when we deprive them of the catnip they crave – attention at all costs.

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Steve Jobs and his wife would not let their children have unlimited use of the Internet.

The man who arguably did more to put the Internet in the hands and pockets of so many knew that too much of a good thing is not in the interest of young people.

Well, it’s also not in the interest of older folks, either.

Balance has always been the goal in life even before smartphones and digital devices were invented and it is no different now.

The best way to get a hold on too much use of digital devices is to redefine what these devices are which is tools, not a lifestyle.

A lifestyle is talking, sharing, laughing, experiencing and discovering people and places around us.  The tools that can often make this easier are digital access to the wide resources of the Internet and the world of apps.

Too many sweets are not good for the health.

Too much time devoted to an excellent communication tool instead of living in the present is also not good for the health.

My students at USC who were forced by their professor to give up using their smartphones for two days largely had these two conclusions.

One, they missed their phones and two, they enjoyed not being tethered to them so much even though they wanted their phones back.

In the end the generation that is addicted to their digital lives may have to be the ones to show everyone else the correct way to use them.

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The reason it is so hard to be a good listener is because most people are listening with the intent to judge.

Make some retort. Or think privately in a way that interferes with the message.

The great thing about being a good listener is that you don’t have to and shouldn’t want to rush to judgment on what you’re hearing.

This is not possible for people who are not comfortable in their own shoes.

And a person who has been caught up in self-absorption erroneously thinks that they must comment or offer an opinion from their perspective on everything they hear.

Good listeners don’t have to vie for the attention.

This is not to say that you can’t have an opinion on what you’re hearing or want to offer a comment on what you hear – but for everything?

Listening is not immediately judging.

It is not about us. It’s about them.

No one is going to get hurt if you don’t weigh in on every comment someone shares.

In fact, it’s the reverse.

The more you listen without making it about you, the more others will think you are a great friend and good conversationalist.

Try it.

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Rejecting another – publicly or privately – is a devastating way to bully and shame a person.

To be on the receiving end of such rejection is tough to deal with.  People use the tactic to control others and often it works because rejection or even the fear of it makes us codependent to the abuser.

Ask how this rejection makes you feel badly.

Here are a few common rejections with workarounds attached.

• A broken relationship might suggest not feeling lovable (Accentuate the strengths you know you have and take this as a sign that the right person is also out there waiting to meet you because they probably are).
• Having an idea dismissed without any consideration, may make you feel stupid (Put a stop/loss on letting other people grade your intellect immediately).
• Leaving you out of a group that you want to be in could suggest you’re not worthy of friendship (Seek out another group and prove to yourself that this is not true).
• Not getting credit at work for something you earned can leave you feeling cheated out of that which is yours (Collect your accomplishments in a place where you can review them as often as necessary. Someone can take away the credit but don’t ever let them take away the accomplishment).
• Getting laid off may make you feel unnecessary (Make feeling useful and important the number one thing you look for in your next job – not money alone).

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You’ve heard the saying “you are your own worst enemy” so how about changing that to “I am my own best friend”.

Friends do not let friends down – so starting today, we won’t let ourselves down either.

Friends accept others the way they truly are so from now on, the way we are will be just fine.

Friends do not demand perfection as a prerequisite for that friendship nor will we demand that everything we do must end with perfection.  Perfection is an okay roadmap but it is not a realistic outcome.

Avoid people who undermine your ability to trust in yourself, your judgment and your actions.

Turn your intentions into promises.  When we have good intentions, cement them by making them a promise to yourself.

Be nice to yourself.  True friends don’t talk in a rude or unkind way about themselves.

Follow your intuition.  100% of the time your intuition is right so when we hesitate or deviate we set ourselves up to undermine our best intelligence.

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Who among us doesn’t need help with this in our super-connected workaday world?

Some solutions …

• Put your screens to bed before you put your children to bed and let them both rest while you engage your spouse and loved ones in real time.
• Take back control of your life and put your digital devices back where they belong – as tools to help make life better and relationships more fruitful.
• Jot your day’s accomplishments down and put them somewhere you can remind yourself of how productive you were.  After hours is about relationships not productivity.
• Greet your spouse and children with the mindset like you have been away on a trip for two weeks when returning home.  And do this every day.
• Engage those around you.  Let them pick the topics and suggest potential outcomes for your time together.  Power down and step up.

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What kind of world do we live in where arguably one of the best quarterbacks who ever played the game of football had to sink to cheating and lying?

But that’s what the NFL’s independence investigator has suggested in his report.

The controversy known as Deflategate where Brady allegedly knew or directed people to deflate the footballs used in competition so they would be easier to throw and catch.  And that he also lied about his knowledge of the situation.

The man has several Super Bowl rings.

He’s rich.

Married to a supermodel who bore him beautiful, healthy children.

When ambition overrules our values then we cease to be a superstar.

Instead we become an opportunist looking to take illegal advantage to get what we want.

I know Brady is in the limelight and there is always pressure on him, but in essence we owe Tom Brady for reminding us how important it is to always courageously stand up for our values.

Winning without integrity on or off the athletic field is nothing to be proud of.

The person who never compromises their values is the real champion.

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Detroit Red Wings coach Mike Babcock has done a lot of winning in his ten years in that city including hockey’s prized Stanley Cup.

But the worst day he ever had coaching, as Babcock told it the other day, was in game 7 of their first round NHL playoff series against Tampa Bay.

“So was that because I thought in my heart we were going to win that series and that we should still be playing? Was that because of what’s coming? I don’t know the answer to that.”

Disappointment can be transformative or it can be disruptive to our happiness.  Sulking over not getting what we want can lead to more sulking and excuse making.  We can lose the edge and become unfocused on what previously seemed so intuitive.

So I like the rule of thumb Babcock has:

“There’s a 24-hour rule in my house for sulking. And I used all 24 hours.”

This is the most effective way of experiencing all negative feelings.

Feel them.

Set a time limit.

Then move on with life.

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Teens are not the only people who are being affected by shaming and bullying.

It is happening more and more at work because – yes, social and digital communication tools make it even more pervasive.

• Being left out is sometimes a form of shaming – nothing new to civilization but more pressing because more people can know that you have been left out of the loop.
• Responding with any form of “no” when you ask co-workers for ideas is a business bully tactic.  If we are asking for fresh thinking, we need to be prepared not to grade the comments we get in response.  “It’s not in the budget”.  “My opinion is (this) in response to your ideas”, etc.
• Firing a person who is well liked and considered valuable just because you can do it sends a chilling message to others that they may be next.  Never play with someone’s future.  The end of a business relationship should be cloaked in compassion, understanding and help not a statement of finality.  “Yes, come back and use our resources to find other opportunities”.  And mean it.
• The big bad elephant in the room is that beautiful people often get further, thinner people get the raise or promotion and people are judged by how they look not how they work.  This type of shaming is rampant in today’s businesses and needs to stop.  How we look is not up for consideration in judging our hearts or abilities.
• The best defense for a bully is to push back and then immediately repair the damage done by the thoughtless person.

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Since when is a cellphone an excuse to be a jerk?

To be non-responsive to the feelings of others?

To focus attention on a screen instead of looking into the eyes of the other person?

Since when is a screen in the backseat of a minivan a substitute for real time spent talking with mom and dad?

The average person receives and responds to over 50 text messages a day – are they better off for it?  Are we?

Good questions because soon many of us will be wearing watches that receive text messages to which we can dictate an audio response.

Digital devices are tools to better living.

Not a substitute for it.

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• From today forward don’t criticize yourself.  Find ways to be better but never as a response to not being adequate.
• Focus on what you are most proud of about yourself.  How would you describe your best advantage to another in one phrase?  Very compassionate person.  A real go-getter.  A consensus builder.  A warm heart with open arms.  Not things like this:  A great earner.  Successful person.  Rich.  Famous.
• While you are giving appreciation to others during the day, do it for yourself.  “I’m getting through a very difficult day” or “I just made my best presentation of the year”.  Include “thank yous” to you.
• Follow your conscience.  I have seen people passed over for promotion that have looked like they got the job because they were able to say, “I listened to myself”.
• Perfection is a zero sum game.  Be like the athlete who plays every game to win not the person who plays every game to be perfect.  In hockey, some goals are just plain ugly, but they count!
• Deal with mistakes as a learning tool.  Out of bad comes good – not always exactly the way we anticipate – but always.
• Comparing yourself to others is a guarantee of future poor self-esteem.  Is the first runner up in a beauty contest chopped liver?  Is physical beauty really that important?  Marvel at who you are.
• Give the gift that keeps on giving to others – your time – to get the real feel of what a person who likes him or herself is all about.

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David Letterman is getting ready to retire from his long late night TV career and in a recent interview he was asked whether the constant awareness of having to beat his competitors was a positive force or negative.

Letterman said that for a few years he was obsessed with trying to beat competitor Jay Leno in the ratings but just had to settle for the fact that Leno would always be number one.

This is no slight.  There are lots of things that contribute to great ratings in late night programming not the least of which is the 10pm network program that preceded local news and, yes, whether audiences stayed tuned for local news.

Once David Letterman stopped trying to do the impossible, his show got better, he got more creative and he became happier (even for the sullen sour puss image that he emits).

His quote says it all:

“The guy in the race who spends more time looking over his shoulder, well, that’s the mistake”.

No one ever accomplished anything good by looking back.

A runner looks ahead at the finish line and we should do no less.

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People who are jealous don’t usually see themselves as jealous.

Jealousy is a killer of friendships and relationships.

It is one human condition that is so self-destructive that we ought to outlaw it right now.

Cultivate a prevention program:

• When someone gets something or someone that I want, celebrate it with sincerity. You don’t want to be the kind of person who is only happy when your wants and dreams come true.
• Never compare yourself to another – it breeds jealousy and serves no human need.
• Avoid playing games. Power struggles often lead to jealousy situations and what is remarkable is that the game and not the goal becomes the focus of jealousy.
• Jealousy in relationships is not love. We give love we don’t take it. When we do not let those close to us have the freedom to choose us every day, we undermine our real value.
• Build up your self-esteem. Jealous people are not comfortable in their own shoes.

As William Penn said, “The jealous are troublesome to others, but a torment to themselves”.

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In baseball, when a pitcher gives up a grand slam home run, it’s tough to come back next inning and fight for those runs back.

In life, when we get a rude awakening from someone who disappoints us, what often follows is depression, pity and the inability to rebound.  This is understandable but it is not the answer.

Your mate has found another – maybe there is someone else waiting to meet me. Some day I will thank you for choosing someone else.

Your employer is going to lay you off – After all I did for this company, really?  I probably would have stayed too long and missed my next opportunity for success so thank you for letting me go.

A friend betrays you — I’m devastated.  We were so close.  I feel so raw.  But true friends protect and do not hurt.  Maybe you’ve opened my mind so that I can recognize a real true friend in the future.

What do these three responses have in common?

Acceptance of the hurt that comes from disappointment.

A positive outcome projected for the future.

No animosity.

Gratitude.

Suffering is transformational.  It makes us better.

But when we approach disappointment like this we coincidentally reduce the duration of suffering.

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It happens.

You do all the right things to have a great day and then someone else rains on your parade.

Other people – including family, friends and, yes, employers – don’t get to make you unhappy without your permission.  Eleanor Roosevelt put it best when she said something similar — “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent” and that applies to making their daily drama YOUR daily drama.

• Start with compassion —  “It’s too bad Jason has to take out his unhappiness on other people like me”.
• Add resolve – “I’m putting a stop/loss on his negative behavior before it goes any further”.
• End with a positive – “My day and my life is not on autopilot.  It is in my hands and I choose to keep enjoying every minute”.

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I often write about abusive people who push boundaries and abuse the sensibilities and feelings of others.

Then there are pushy people.

They have to get their way and they can do it by being passive, even charming – until we give in.

My rule of thumb is say yes to others as much as possible.  Most people say no so you’ll get great satisfaction from this and others will be the beneficiary of your kindness.

Where to draw the line is when a person invades your boundaries.  “Thems fightin’ words” to me. No matter how sweet or how forceful the approach, we must rise to the occasion in defense of the boundaries that define us as a person.

Example:  Someone tries to coerce you to do something that is unethical or just not right according to your sensibilities. The answer is no.

No is the magic word to repel pushy people.

You don’t have to shout it. You don’t have to get upset.  Just say the word – no. Say it as needed again and again if you have to in defense of the most persistent people.

When someone wants you to do anything that makes you uncomfortable, the answer is no.  No explanation required.  The more you explain, the more pushy people use your words against you.

They say diplomacy is the art of letting other people have your way and diplomacy is good.

But boundaries define us – who we are, what we stand for – no person gets to do that but us.

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