Taylor Swift is one of the most important icons in the Millennial generation.

She is a role model for a lot of young and teenage girls and is a savvy businessperson in her own right.

She recently wrote in the stogy old Wall Street Journal to put selfies in their proper place.

Selfies are today’s autographs.

No one would dare ask someone for their signature when they could have a picture taken with them to distribute via social media.

My daughter, Daria, and her girlfriends at ASU Cronkite School were surprised to be approached by President Clinton and his Secret Service agents as he asked them if THEY would like to have a picture taken with HIM at a school event.

Taylor Swift says Instagram followers are currency because Instagram is the most important social networking tool for their age group.

She has 9.7 million Instagram followers, 41.7 million Twitter followers and 66.6 Facebook likes.

I can think of an almost endless number of people I wish I could have included in a selfie looking back on the past had only technology to do so been present.

The real revolution was not the computer, not even the Internet.

It is social media.

And anyone who says I don’t do social media is leaving one of life’s great new communication tools behind.

It’s called vamping and teens do it when they are supposed to be in bed and their parents think they are sleeping.

Snuggling under the covers, dimming the screen uploading music, watching videos, discovering whatever they seek online.

A recent New York Times article cited a recent National Sleep Foundation Poll that revealed more than half of 15 to 17 year olds sleep about 7 hours a night – 90 minutes less that the minimum recommendation.

As a professor at USC, my antidotal evidence was more like they’d be lucky to get four hours of sleep and they sleep with their phones in bed or nearby.

One explanation is that young people have so much structure in their lives installed by their parents that they cannot be free until their parents go to bed.

Texting is an amazing tool to help us communicate more seamlessly.

But it is not a lifestyle — jut a tool.

Without pointing fingers and including myself, parents are often poor role models when it comes to technology.

As our lives become more stressful, our goal should be to become more helpful.

And one last thought.

When a person is important enough to you, they deserve your focused attention in person with the exact same way we focus on our digital devices.

Psychologists and physicians tell us that another one of the human brain’s amazing abilities is to help us forget about painful things.

Not to say that we cannot remember hurt from years ago, but that we don’t remember it in exactly the same way.

The death of my mother and father is still sad to me but my visceral response is not the panic and disbelief I felt hours and days after they died.

A painful childhood has a way of sticking with us for a lifetime yet if we felt the pain exactly as it happened we might not be able to move on.

Denial is often the tool by which we deal with pain but even that tool betrays us if we also do not deal with our hurts and then also move on.

Same for pleasure.

If you remember the birth of your daughter, the promotion to partner, the first time you felt financially secure – it is still a great thought but not exactly as it was when it happened.

Fulton Sheen used to say when we get what we want, we no longer want it so it is often better to let go and experience life’s ups and downs with fewer preconceived demands.

Our mission then is to deal with life’s problems, not necessarily solve them and the human mind helps us along the way so we can stay focused on that goal.

The past is like a file cabinet, hard drive or cloud that holds our memories of the past.

The best way to deal with the past is to access it on-demand, get what we are after, then close the file and return to the present.

The future is unpredictable and unknowable.

The best way to visit the future is for planning purposes. But when we find that we are spending too much time in the future, immediately return to the present.

And what is the present?

It is not a place where we mindlessly disregard past memories or future dreams.  It is a place where we choose to focus our attention to drain every moment of happiness from what is happening now.

The past is a history book.

The future is a promissory note.

The present is cash in hand.

My wife and I are on vacation at an old haunt at Barnegat Light on Long Beach Island “down the Jersey shore” as you read this.

We love everything about the shore but what makes us anticipate this time together is revisiting and inventing new rituals.

Walking to the ice cream parlor near the lighthouse and waiting in a long line where we get to meet people from everywhere and around the corner.

Sitting on the beach after hours until the sun goes down.

Discovering a new walk.  Sitting by the dock of the bay would make Otis Redding happy.  (By the way, did you know Otis Redding never lived to see how big his version of “Dock of the Bay” eventually became).

Dinner with someone new.

Playing air hockey, golf and Scrabble together on our iPads.

Who knows what rituals we will conjure up this week.

A friend told me that successful relationships have one thing in common – they are embellished by seemingly little rituals that bring people closer.

A couple married 72 years recently revealed that doing things together and making decisions together makes for happier relationships.

Those decisions don’t always have to be major life decisions.

We can practice by making a late night run to Café Bacio in Beach Haven where they sell only desserts.

Followed, of course, by running on the beach to work off the calories the next day.

Bobby Ocean wrote to me recently to share this wisdom:

“I borrowed it from a Zen province in France where everyone yearly renews their spiritual guidelines and during that time, those wedded renew the decision they made when first living together – to treat one another as an “honored guest”.”

“Honored Guest” exceeds husband/wife or mother/father.

Often we find ourselves treating others as if they are furniture – they are there but they have no feelings.

Titles are titles but “honored guests” is a concept that changes the way we relate to those close to us whom we love.

Patrolman Kevin Briggs helped save many people from jumping to their death from San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge.

What Briggs discovered worked best was to just listen.

He didn’t have any magic words that could save the lives of those bent on committing suicide.  In a powerful message to all of us, Briggs says listening can be the best advice.

His advice is also effective in helping people who are not yet on the brink – all of us respond positively when someone lends an ear.

Here are the three building blocks to the awesome power of listening to another person:

1. Listen to understand.
2. Don’t argue, blame or tell the person how they feel.
3. Being there for them may be the turning point they need.

Isn’t it ironic that no words can accomplish what no words can do?

Officer Briggs’ short inspirational talk on the power of listening is here.

The To-Do list that helps us accomplish the most is the one where the majority of items are never going to get done.

Many people are great at doing to-do lists, but fewer excel at getting things accomplished in spite of all the books that have been written on the subject.

Prioritize your tasks – All to-do’s are not created equally.

Only do 20% of them each day – 80% of all productivity comes from choosing the right 20% of your tasks to work on.  Make that decision wisely and you’ll have more time and accomplish more.

Don’t use your to-do list to park things you have no intention of doing – A task list should change constantly.  It must not be static.

Some things don’t need to be done at all – and some can be delegated to others.  Knowing the difference makes all the difference.

Finishing all your tasks means you failed – Happiness and success doesn’t come from getting all your work done because you’ll simply replace completed tasks with ones in an endless vicious cycle.

Assessing what is most important is the secret to productivity.

Young Millennials have been born into an age of great transition and uncertainty.

Over the past decade when they graduated from college, jobs were not readily available leaving many unemployed or underemployed.

Over 40% of Millennials live with their parents because of this and the high cost of repaying college loans.

Yet Millennials are an eternally optimistic generation.

They refuse to give up on their dreams as the oldest ones from their generation exceed 31 years of age.

Dreams are the sustenance of life.

When we stop dreaming, we stop living.

We settle for whatever we’ve got and don’t aim for more.

As long as we have air to breath, it is not only appropriate but essential that we never give up on our dreams.  Even if it is never attained, the person who dreams accomplishes more and is happier.

As Amy Tan said in The Hundred Secret Senses, “Everyone must dream. We dream to give ourselves hope”.

Dealing with anxiety is harder than it looks in our digital/connected world.

There are medications for some and then there are frustrations from trying to tame a fast-moving world.

I have found these anxiety fighters just as effective as medication and none of them require a co-pay:

1. At the first sign that anxiety is building, take ten deep breaths slowly breathing in for five seconds, holding it for five seconds and then gently letting it out for five seconds.  This works.  And you can do it longer if you like.
2. Remember this number – 99.9%.  That’s the percentage of times what we’re worried about that is making us anxious will never happen.  Focus on 99.9%.
3. The 0.1% when what we fear does happen, it rarely occurs exactly the way we feared it would happen.  Tuck this away in your head when fear and worry makes you anxious.
4. Key tool to keep handy:  IOUs for the many times in life when you have faced up to anxiety and succeeded.  Thinking, “I’ve done it before and I can do it again” can be preventative.
5. We have options to walk away from anxiety without telling anyone why.  It is our right to exit tense situations because we are being kind to ourselves.
6. When the same people tend to increase your anxiety, cut down or cut out the time you spend with them.
7. Fear of loss is normal and healthy.  In the end we all have to say goodbye to the ones we love and have to give up the things we’ve attained in life.  Another key thought:  loss is followed by something else gained.

I once asked a psychologist how long it takes to overcome grief from losing a loved one and he said, “It takes as long as it takes as long as your grief doesn’t interfere with going on with life”.

In other words, grief becomes loss and loss can become a permanent sad place.

But there is help.

1. Surround yourself with happy memories – pictures, letters, cookbooks.  I have inherited my mother’s Italian recipes and I feel reunited with her again when I carry on to make Italian Sunday “gravy”.  It will never be as good as hers, but somehow I feel connected in a happy way.  We’re in the kitchen together.
2. Make the person you lost a part of the life in which you are moving on.  My best friend died suddenly two years ago.  He was like an older brother to me, but I am not overstating it when I say there isn’t a day that I don’t say his name, quote his wisdom to those around me or marvel at his human relations. (There, I’ve done it again!)
3. For those who had a questionable or even hurtful relationship with a loved one who is now departed, guilt is not an option.  Trek to the cemetery and have the talk you always wanted to have with that difficult person.  They can’t answer back.  It’s all about you getting your feelings out.  A good thought is that they are in a better place now and would probably be sorry for any pain they caused you in this life and wish the best for you going forward.
4. And if you are religious, this thought from a clergyman:  now you have someone else to pray to for help and guidance.

Our time on this earth is finite.

What we do with it is infinite.

Entering this new “relationship” with a loved one who is dearly departed is a positive and loving substitute for never ending grief.

Love is what keeps us in special relationships but novelty is what helps love continue to grow.

1. Meet your partner every day as if you’re meeting them after 30 days.  The response will be all consuming.  Before walking in the door to greet loved ones say to yourself, “Pretend I’m coming home from a month long absence.  How eager would I be and how would I act?”
2. Be aware of how finite life is.  When you think how many more Christmases you have together, you tend not to waste valuable time.  Children grow up and go to college when they are 17 or 18, how many family vacations together do you have?  This one thought guarantees that you will have no regrets.
3. For the first 5 minutes when you engage with family members, don’t try to improve them.  Either improve them or enjoy them.  You can’t do both.

Enter free agency just like pro athletes.

They rent themselves out for relatively short periods of time – one to seven years at the best price they can get.

But it works for the rest of us, too.

Here’s what I do.

In a few weeks, I’ll reconvene at the Jersey Shore to decide how I want to spend the next year.  I like one-year arrangements because I own the company, but I have done longer deals with employers.

Should I continue writing my websites?  Change the model?  Launch short form video projects?  Do more speaking and seminars?  Write another book?

I factor in things like compensation, family and personal happiness and location.

I clear my mind of any prejudices I might have about what I did last year and face any fears of doing something completely unknown.

Within days I have a digital device full of notes and ideas and before the week is out I will either recommit to what I am doing, change some of it, change all of it or disrupt my career.

Avoiding getting stuck in a career and a life that has become monotonous is the goal.  I feel like I am actually taking charge of my life by going through this quite pleasant process every summer while vacationing.

Even for those of us with careers that are hard to leave – medicine or law come to mind – going through this process reinvigorates you when you consciously re-up for another year as your best chosen option.

I have more details on how to become a free agent in my book Out of Bad Comes Good – The Advantages of Disadvantages in Chapter 10 (Career Chaos).

I’ve made the chapter available free for those interested – read it here.

Don’t try to change your partner.

It cannot be done no matter how hard you try.  So the best alternative is to accept the person you love unconditionally.

This does not mean that certain accommodations can be for the happiness of both parties.

1. Listen and learn – most people in life are more than content if they can get someone – anyone – to actually listen to them.  Often, listening is enough.  You can imagine why spouses and partners grow angry at their mates when they feel they are not being heard.
2. Better yet, reinforce what the other person is saying – meaning, if your spouse says we never have dinner together, work always interferes.  When you plan a dinner together, reinforce that you liked dining earlier with the person you love.  Don’t say, “You wanted me to come home early, so I did, are you happy?”
3. Give up control – controlling people ruins the lives of those around them and their own lives as well.  Try to just let go and see if it kills you.  It won’t, but you may feel a lot better.  Relationships thrive when they are free to grow.

Lots of books have been written and money spent on counseling to help couples improve their marriages.

Who knew that the free advice is the best advice?

Accept each other the way you are – no changes required.

Not maintaining a healthy weight.

Not exercising.

Not quitting smoking.

Doctors say these things do help.

But as amazing as it may seem, simply smiling adds years to our lives.

Researchers studied the smiles of 196 baseball players based on their pictures taken in 1952.  The non-smilers lived an average of 72.9 years.

But those who smiled lived to be 75 – almost three full years longer simply by smiling.

And those who were pictured with so-called Duchenne smiles which engage the muscles of both the mouth and the eyes lived an average of 79.9 years – almost 7 extra years by lightening up.

Being a sour puss robs us of valuable years.

Here’s the study – fascinating reading.

Since, as the song “Smiling Faces” reminds us, a smile is just a frown turned upside down, we now have the best motivation ever to permanently put a grin on our faces.

It’s not the amount of time, but the amount of you in that time.

A one-hour dinner with the family if you’ve had to text or talk to someone else in the middle of the meal is not as good as fewer minutes face-to-face with no distractions.

A day with your children is not necessarily better than just the two of you telling stories and sharing experiences for an hour at the end of the day.

A long meeting with associates is not more effective than a short meeting where everyone stands (not sits) and focuses 100% of attention on solving a specific problem then coming up with a plan of action.

Guilt about being busy is lessened to the extent that we can focus 100% of our attention on the people who are important in our lives.

It’s about quality not quantity.

Our lifelong search for how to become more efficient and reclaim lost hours is a vicious cycle.

We actually have all the time we need.

What is missing is putting more you into the time you have.

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Live each day like it is your last.

Or as Steve Jobs said in a commencement address to Stanford graduates in 2008:

“…For the past 33 years, I’ve looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself, if today were the last day of my life would I want to do what I am about to do today.  And whenever the answer has been no for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.”

Jobs says remembering that we will be dead soon was the most important tool he could use to have the courage to make the big choices in life.

Fear of failure dissipates in the face of death.

It’s why a person who has conquered cancer lives the next portion of their lives so differently — as bravely as they fought the cancer itself.

As Jobs said, “Your time is limited so don’t waste it living someone else’s life”.

Do the thing you fear to do and the fear will go away from you.

Feel with your heart.

Think with your mind.

Never stop dreaming.

For the fear of something to lose is an illusion.

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In 2012, 3,328 people died and another 421,000 people were injured in accidents involving distracted drivers.

I once asked for a show of hands among my USC college students for those who texted while they drove.  The laughter was loud and long.  Almost everyone does it.

Stupid question.

To take the cure, play this very short video from Volkswagen.

In it, a group of Hong Kong moviegoers are looking at a screen that puts them in the driver’s seat of a moving car.

Then, a mass text is sent to the audience simultaneously.

They reach for their phones, look down and … well, see for yourself.

I don’t think anyone could text and drive after seeing this.

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Yelling is as hurtful as hitting.

Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh and University of Michigan say that parents who yell at their adolescent children for doing something wrong cause the same problems as hitting them would.  The study included 976 two-parent families with children ages 13-14.

The recipients of this kind of verbal abuse tend to become more depressed and more aggressive as a result.

“Lazy” and “stupid” and other hurtful words even resonate if the parents have a warm loving relationship with their children otherwise.

The study also showed that yelling makes a person do the opposite of what they want.

45% of the participating mothers and 42% of the fathers said they had used harsh verbal discipline within the past year.  Almost everyone does it and few are proud of it.

Beyond teens, yelling has the same effect.

It’s abuse.

Better option:  take away privileges without the corresponding harsh language.

When you yell, it hurts the self-image of those you love, know or work with.

Making someone feel worthwhile instead of worthless is the more productive alternative.

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“I wish you well”.

Realize that everyone is struggling with something and silently wish them well when they say something mean, hurtful or devious.

You don’t have to like what they say or do, but you don’t have to let them bring out the bad side of you.

You get uplifted when you wish people well.

You get the benefit.

Doctors have mapped positive changes in the brain when you accentuate the positive side of your personality.

Do it often every day – to people you know, don’t know or live with.

It helps keep your energy up.

As you practice it becomes easier.

Stress Free Living author Amit Sood reminds us that there was a time in prehistoric days when the focus had to constantly be on outside threats (animals, being attacked). 

The world has changed.  We are no longer on threat-watch.

Our brains need to be rewired.

The simple phrase “I wish you well” said silently many times a day is how you rewire your brain for happiness.

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