The habitual action of making assumptions and responding as if they are facts stresses marriages.

When you’re sure you’re right, you are most often dead wrong.

When we fail to differentiate the difference between reality and our imagination, we guarantee failure to communicate.

So how to change?

A fact is something that can be observed and verified.

This month is August.

An assumption is something that is only accepted as true.

You can imagine how many misunderstandings we have had as husbands and wives over that which has been assumed rather than what is so.

There are lots of books on marriage.

And lots of psychiatrists and psychologists who will be happy to schedule you in for 45 minutes, but one of the best ways to eliminate the fuel for fighting is to take the time to get the facts first.

I could have been your doctor.

Scary thought, eh?

Yes, when I was 21, someone close to me kept nudging me to go to medical school even though I was happy being a radio and TV personality.

So they arranged an interview with the Chief of Medicine at Temple University Hospital and during the interview he asked me more about the Philadelphia radio and TV scene than I was able to ask about the virtue of a career in medicine.

Even if I applied and was admitted to med school, I often wonder whether I would have been living someone else’s life.

Do you ever feel like that?

Steve Jobs told the graduating class of Stanford that they should stop living someone else’s life.  That he was optimistic he could survive his Pancreatic cancer and have a few more decades to do what he loves to do.

Obviously Jobs didn’t beat his cancer but he lived even his final moments exactly as he wished.

We are on loan to life.

Our children are temporarily in our custody then we must set them free.

We must someday say goodbye to all those we love and must surrender all the material things – including money – to others.

All the more reason to be selfish about one thing.

It’s your life.

Live it exactly the way you want.

In every way.

You never win an argument.

Not even if you think you’ve won.

Dale Carnegie used to say the best way to win an argument is to avoid it.

But there’s even better advice.

Understand the other person’s point of view before you ask them to understand yours.

We become focused on what we’re saying and if what we’re saying is rejected, then we feel rejected.

Give up the urge to be right.

Choose your arguments carefully.

Once, while meeting the parents of a girl I was dating, I witnessed an impressive example of this at dinner when her mother picked a fight with her father.  He tried for about a minute to react and then quickly – almost like magic – he said, “You’re right” because it wasn’t worth it to him.

When it is worth the debate understand how to stay cool (courtesy of Amit Sood):

• Stop your negative thoughts.
• Exhale deeply for a few breaths and watch your frustration leave with your breath.
• Redirect your thoughts to something you feel grateful for or someone you feel compassionate about.
• Evaluate what has you stressed using gratitude and compassion as your guide.
• Negotiate what you were doing but with a calmer mind and fresher perspective.

Hint:  assume the other person has positive intent, which will help the disagreement avoid the damaging rage that frequently erupts.

We can be lonely in a group of people.

Some spouses feel alone in their marriages.

All the Facebook friends and Instagram contacts does not guarantee that we are not lonely in our lives.

Loneliness is the feeling of being without friends and the closeness that comes from interaction with others.

Being alone is a regenerative state to help us get in touch with feelings, desires, dreams and allow us time to solve problems and deal with them.  It can also be a time of great focus on that which we have a great personal interest.

The best way to avoid loneliness and get the most out of being alone is to:

1. Work to have a solid support group of friends, family and associates at the ready for when you need them.
2. Never forget that time spent alone can be very valuable when it is a part of the more social aspects of our lives.
3. Use time alone to recharge and invest in yourself.
4. Use alone time to pursue your dreams.  No one ever realized big dreams without devoting one-on-one time with those dreams so that they can pursue those dreams in the future.

I love speaking before audiences but when I am done, I look forward to an equal and opposite amount of time alone with my thoughts to regenerate my feelings and balance my life.

Being alone, then, is a tool to help us avoid loneliness that brings sadness.

The Eagles had it right in “Take It Easy”:

“We may lose and we may win though we will never be here again”

In the radio industry right now some formerly ethical and moral people have sold their souls to make more money and acquire power.

It’s logical to want to earn a living and have an influence in this world especially in what we do, but far too often we lose sight of the end game.

Losing is transformational.

“Losers” almost always have another day as tomorrow’s success.

And winning is overrated when you have to sell your soul to chase money and might.

To avoid this sorry fate, the new mantra should be win or lose, we will never be here again so take it easy and be the person you want to be – not the unhappy one it is so easy to become.

My best friend, Jimmy, used to say that all the time as a reminder that often we know what is best for us and we just stop doing it.

Meanwhile we expend lots of energy and anxiety trying to find new ways to do what we already know works.

I said “It worked so well I stopped doing it” just today to remind myself that I am still guilty of walking away from doing what I know works.

In this case, I like to stay physically fit.  I have gyms and treadmills in both my Arizona and New Jersey homes.  But when I was away from the equipment on vacation at a rented beach house I had none of that.

I had to rely on what used to work better than all this equipment that I own.  It’s called The Royal Canadian Air Force Fitness Plan – you know, just for the week, right?

I had it right way back then when I couldn’t even afford a treadmill so what I’m saying is – I’ll add the extra goodies in but I’m going back to what worked well for so long that I stopped doing it.

It could be anything.

Or everything.

Do I have any company out there?

There are lots of ways to bully people but one of the most popular ones is to make fun of them because they are fat.

For decades thin-is-better has gotten out of hand.

Healthy is best and people of all sizes and shapes can be healthy.

Fat shaming is particularly odious on social media where it seems the worst elements of bullying have found a new and powerful way to hurt people.

Fat shaming or any other kind is a direct reflection on the person doing the bullying and it hurts the victim.

The beauty Marilyn Monroe would be considered too fat to be a model by today’s standards.

Here is how to support friends or children who are losing confidence because they are being held to social media ridicule for being too fat:

1. Fat shaming doesn’t lead to weight loss but it does lead to a serious loss of confidence.
2. Your body was given to you to love and protect.
3. Even skinny people can be “big hearted” – the size of your heart matters more than the size or shape of your body.
4. Even a doctor does not get to fat shame a patient for health reasons — allow no one to be the weight police.

Be proud of yourself and your body.

The only thing that matters is to be the fine person that you are.

Now we know.

A study done by Advisor Perspectives has nailed it down to the penny.

So how much household income is necessary to achieve happiness?

$75,000 a year.

More in some states.  Less in others.

New Jersey it takes $95,700 but in Missouri $70,271.

It takes only $65,800 to achieve happiness in Mississippi and $122,175 in Hawaii.

Making more will not increase your happiness significantly and yet almost all of us devote our lives to making more money even though we have no idea when enough is enough or not enough is preventing us from being happy.

What if we had a metric for happiness not related to income.

Happy moments together.

Friends in our lives.

Loved ones with whom to share our experiences and dream our dreams.

Wouldn’t that be a way to get the most for the money you earn and then some?

Place a real value on things that money can’t buy and you’ll discover the road to fulfillment.

I thought you might like to see what you need to earn in all 50 states so here it is.

My friend John Dowd, Jr (also known to SiriusXM “70’s on 7” listeners at Jaybeau Jones) writes:

“Many confuse self confidence with conceit and arrogance.  Self-confidence is something others can feel, while arrogance is an external reaction to a situation that others can see.

We can’t control how others react to our self-confidence.

Some will champion it; others may be threatened by it.

In those situations we must keep moving and send those who are threatened a silent blessing in hopes that they discover inner confidence on their journey.

Self-confidence originates in the heart from a place of love and a need to do well to help others. Arrogance and conceit are powered from fear.

Start today and every day centered in your heart with 100% self-confidence”.

I subscribe to his daily motivators and thought you might like to see John’s work here.

On my media website I wrote about a radio executive who was fired by his best friend since first grade – the godfather to his son and executor of his will.

And the firing was done in an unnecessarily cruel way.

In our quest to be successful and self-fulfilled, we are often making compromises that hurt the ones we love.

It has happened to me, perhaps to you as well.

The feeling of being betrayed by someone so close to you is more than an empty feeling, it is a raw rejection that seemingly never goes away.

I once heard a psychiatrist say that people who have had their heart broken should stop glorifying the person who broke their heart.  It just makes things worse and keeps the pain front and center.

She suggested instead of saying “no one will ever love me like that again” to substitute “he wasn’t that good looking anyway”.

Which prompts the thought that when we are betrayed by a friend, instead of obsessing over the ingratitude of it all, think constantly of someone else in your life who could be called a friend and for whom you are truly grateful.

If you liked this piece, subscribe and share it with your friends.  If you want more resources, go to Jerry Del Colliano.com.

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.