My best friend in the world was fond of paying me a compliment by saying, “JD, you’re a good man”.

Nothing has ever meant more to me.

I try to share this sentiment with people I want to compliment as well. 

“You’re a good woman”. 

“You’re a good person”.

“You’re a good friend”.

But there’s one more component.

Always provide evidence.

“You’re a good woman because you constantly care about others”.

“You are a good husband because you treat everyone equally”.

“You’re a good leader because you brought the best out of all of us. Without you we could not have succeeded”.

Sincerity is a must or else this good intention becomes a form of manipulation.

The simple sound of “you’re a good person” followed by evidence is the most effective form of appreciation I know.

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Even small things can turn into great anxiety.

And it starts with those butterflies we feel flying around inside of us.

Butterflies are a good thing.  Any of us who has ever made a presentation can testify that it means we care about doing our very best.

So think of butterflies as representing a great compliment.

But we want these nervous butterflies to fly in formation – not get out of control or lead to more serious anxiety.

Here are a few ways:

1. Think of ways that you have come up big in similar challenging situations and make an IOU to yourself to cash in when butterflies spread their wings.
2. Focus on the present not the past or future.  Ruminations about what may happen (that probably will not) or what happened before (which doesn’t mean it will happen again) are self-destructive.  Give yourself a break.
3. Say this over and over:  “I can handle anything that can happen” – that phrase is tantamount to pre-programming your brain to have confidence.
4. Never fear being human.  People admire a person who cares, appears sincere and is authentic – just like them. 

You will never meet a butterfly that you cannot control by getting them to fly in formation.

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Baby boomers went for to-do lists. 

Gen Xers for bucket lists.

Millennials are now embracing dream boards.

Boards that are assembled the way Carrie Mathison on Homeland slapped visual pictures of terrorists on her wall.

Except dream boards are about visualizing goals and passions and finding a way to accomplish them.

Millennials rarely use to-do lists. 

Baby boomers rarely use dream boards.

Gen Xers rarely use either.

Here’s how to get the best from all three:

1. Make a to-do list but then prioritize only the 20% of things that deliver 80% of the accomplishments.  Caution applies.  People who are expert at preparing to-do lists are often no better off than those who do not because they can become slaves to them.
2. Bucket lists work best when they are short – a few things rather than the fantasy of doing everything.  You can always add more.
3. Dream boards are an outstanding way to visualize dreams, hopes and goals and it works best when you can also visualize in your mind’s eye the pictures that are on your dream wall to take with you.

Whatever combination works best, focus 100% attention on fewer things that matter most.

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By postponing judgment on things we hear in communicating with others – even by as little as one second – our brains begin to become retrained to respond better.

Responding instead of reacting – all because we commit to waiting as little as a second before responding.

Brain scans confirm that the part of the brain that avoids histrionics or emotional responses that can cause talking past another individual is stimulated every time we can add even one second to our response time.

That means fewer arguments with spouses over topics that get a fast response instead of a relevant response.

Fewer disputes with bosses or associates over how to proceed at the workplace.

This does not mean that adding one second is tantamount to giving in.  It’s more like giving both sides a chance to digest what they’ve heard.

Brain research also shows that if we can postpone judgment for 1 second, we can eventually advance to 2 seconds and longer.

Whether we agree or disagree, relationships improve when we postpone judgment on what we think we heard.

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Gandhi said “There is more to life than increasing its speed”.

Nine tenths of all our stress is a result of excessive thoughts, hurry up living and our obsession to want everything that is pleasurable.

Material things.

Money.

The fear of losing money or status.

After all, you would think Bernie Madoff had enough money before he got involved in a Ponzi scheme but he became obsessed with the fear of losing what money meant to him.

Stress from fear of not keeping up.

Stress from living up to what we perceive others expect of us.

Stress from negative thinking that makes us restless and worried.

Stop the momentum.

Pay attention to that which is really important.

Slow down and enjoy today because it is all that matters.

When visiting the past or the future, do so temporarily and then return to the present.

Ironically, we generate more stress for ourselves than others who we perceive as those who are making us miserable.

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What’s worse — expecting trouble or the trouble actually happening?

Well, I can tell you which one causes more concern.

Anticipating what we fear that is likely never going to happen.

When we become obsessed with what is looming over us, we have already paid the price.

99% of that which we worry about never happens.

And of the 1% that does, it rarely happens the way we feared it would.

When you anticipate trouble ahead, try this:

1. Become obsessed not with the thought of what you fear is going to happen but with the reminder that 99% of the time what you fear will likely never happen.
2. Become lost in the present – distracted in a good way by what you are doing now, not by that bad thing you fear is about to happen next.
3. Find peace in knowing that whatever comes to be, you have the skills to deal with it.

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About 50% of adults admit to texting while driving compared to 43% for teens and six out of ten said they weren’t doing it six years ago (2012 AT&T survey).

And often the first ones to complain about a teen texting across the table is the parent who, now we know, does it while driving more than their child.

Several years ago when I asked my USC students if they ever texted while driving, they broke out in roaring laughter.

Of course they do.

Of course we all do.

Although almost all states have laws prohibiting texting while driving or at the minimum have a distracted driving prevention campaign, this strategy will not work.

Deal with the distractions of texting and driving because occasionally it can be deadly.

But texting can also be deadly to your relationships as well.  I love my digital devices and would never give them up. 

When they become a distraction, simply put them in their proper place.

There should never again be the scene you have probably witnessed and that I am about to describe.  A single father with his young son and daughter at a Chinese restaurant.

Dad was on the phone for the entire dinner – via Bluetooth earphone.

His children sat next to each other as if dad didn’t exist talking to each other during the entire dinner.  I lost my appetite. 

Texting can also enhance a relationship.  A study in the Journal of Couple and Relationship Therapy said that the volume of text messages wasn’t as important as whether they were loving messages.

Men who texted more showed lower relationship quality.  They tended to text more as they were disconnecting from a relationship.  Less when they became more engaged.

Women who texted more often said they had higher quality relationships than those who texted more sparingly.

Once and for all.

It’s not about the device.

It’s the person.

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A study in the journal Child Development concludes that parents who yell at their adolescent children cause the same kind of negative behavior as hitting them especially increased the risk of depression and aggressive behavior.

So parents who yell insults at teens calling them “lazy” or “stupid” are literally still slapping them in the face.

The kids whose parents used more harsh verbal discipline when they were 13 paid for it with behavioral problems as soon as one year later. 

Things like trouble in school fighting and depressive symptoms.

There are no studies that equate yelling and hitting for adults, but certainly verbal abuse is rampant in a world that moves as quickly as ours does today.

When employers resort to yelling, it adversely affects a person’s self-esteem.

All this sounds easy enough except in practice yelling often becomes the tool of first resort at work, at home, with family and spouses.

A helpful step is to postpone reaction time – even by a second or two to change up the frustration one feels when they trigger a yelling bout.

Just a few seconds can work wonders.

There is virtually no one who will disagree with the proposition that yelling hurts people so learning how to postpone responding to situations in which you feel compelled to yell, can be transformative.

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You’re going to think I’m crazy when I say think less.

We are drowning in over-think.

It’s one thing to intensely prepare for a presentation, but it is quite another to live the rest of the week preparing for other things that may not happen with that same intensity.

We ruminate on negative things when we think too much.

And expend a lot of energy.

We need to think, plan and progress but when we do too much of it, we let in these ruminations that do no good and make us unhappy.

We are quite qualified to handle life’s challenges and that’s a message worth repeating over and over.  But overthinking our lives is exactly what makes it difficult to live in the present.

Here’s a plan:

• Slow down or pause the constant planning in your life
• Save your best problem solving skills for when they are needed but not in constant perpetual motion
• Replace daydreaming thoughts with focusing full attention on what is happening now (I do this in 3-minute segments because more often than not, 3 minutes is always doable and staying focused often extends longer)

Sometimes we do too much when less brings us serenity and pleasure that is not possible by constantly overthinking our daily lives.

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1. When you win an argument, someone has to lose.  Best way to win an argument is to avoid it.
2. Postpone judgment.  Whatever your partner says that you may have a quick reaction to, take a moment – even a brief one if that is all you can muster – before commenting.  You’ll find that your ability to pause, think and consider will become easier.
3. Work as hard on your marriage as you do on your career and you will obtain it (my personal favorite).
4. The best gift that never goes out of style is the gift of your time.  Listen with 100% attention.  Be present in all ways when conversing with a loved one.
5. Celebrate your differences – the only thing that needs to be the same is the shared values upon which your lives are based.
6. The past is your enemy in an argument.  Leave it there.  Move on.
7. After the two year initial mating period, mature love grows by sharing interests and building on joint achievements.
8. Even during rocky periods, it’s never too late to have a date.
9. The only average that counts is batting 1.000 at trying (from my book Out of Bad Comes Good- The Advantages of Disadvantages).

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I discovered a Mayo Clinic physician who shared the most powerful example of why we never again want to be so complacent about taking things for granted.

His patient who had bladder cancer just wanted to be able to use the bathroom like everyone else.   That simple.  Because of his condition, an ordinary function that most of us don’t even think twice about became an object of appreciation.

We’ve heard “you’ll appreciate me when I am gone”.

Why do people never appreciate what they have until they lose it?

It’s human nature but we can do better.

This powerful approach breeds gratitude for even common every day things and recognizes appreciation for people we tend to ignore.

1. Find three things to be grateful for three strategic times a day.
2. Wake up in the morning and before getting out of bed or even fully opening your eyes, name three things you are grateful for as you wake up.  It could be the person next to you, the sun shining in, the feel of the rug under your feet.
3. Midday, find three more things to be grateful for in the same manner.  This can be in the form of an email, text or call to tell others thank you.  Or a private recollection.
4. Before going to bed, three more things about the day you’ve just lived that you are grateful for. 

For some, taking time to appreciate at three strategic times a day will be more gratitude than they’ve expressed in weeks or months.

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When I was getting my haircut, I noticed a mother having her hair colored with a son who looked to be 10 years old sitting in the empty chair next to her.

All during the procedure, she had her iPhone glued to her face and said not a word to her boy.  Remarkably, he kept himself busy without the help of a digital device, which is more than his mom could say.

This is a tough world where the allure of a smartphone is an addiction and where the lack of face-to-face interaction with other people including family is fast becoming a dysfunction.  

Let me stop there. 

We all do it. 

I confess as well.

But there is something we can do to retrain the way we use our digital devices and interact with others.

It is being present when we are present.

Lean forward and give 100% of your attention to another person.   No distractions.  No phones.  No daydreaming or fretting about that which tends to stress us out.

Even 5 minutes of this focused attention is powerful and once we get used to eliminating the things that distract us from human interaction, 5 minutes can grow to 10 and beyond.

No one wants to give up their digital devices.

Being actually present when we are present with others – 100% all-in to conversations – is how we take control of our digital world while reclaiming what’s important in life.

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Bruce Lachot and Kent Loo, Scottsdale, AZ dentists are taking their entire office to Hawaii in a few months. 

They are paying for all their expenses – airfare, travel, meals and are shutting down the office and not charging their staff with vacation time. 

It’s not the only time Dr. Lachot and Dr. Loo has done this.  Their practice is new age and employee-centric which is why patients love to go to the dentist if that’s possible.

When Dr. Lachot and Dr. Loo’s employees signed on to work for them, they did not know that Lachot and Loo were going to far exceed what most employers do.  They wouldn’t have any way to know of their regular potluck lunches where doctors and employees work together to solve problems. 

They have exceeded their expectations.

Whenever we exceed customers expectations, they leave happy and return again.  Hang out in an Apple store to see this in action.

And it doesn’t always have to be about gifts or money.

Sometimes it is about time.

Spending extra time with a parent or loved one or a friend that needs your ear and devoting 100% of your attention costs nothing but reaps great benefits.

We are unstoppable when we put these words on our refrigerators and smartphones:  exceed expectations.

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For years the state of Michigan had a problem getting residents to sign up as organ donors.

Even with 800 volunteers canvassing the state.

So in 2011 these volunteers asked the state of Michigan for permission to allow DMV clerks to ask every customer whether they would like to donate their organs.

In just two years the number of new donors went from 320,000 to 520,000 due mostly to the direct in-person questioning of the DMV clerks.

It took 16 years to register 2 million donors and now there are 3 million statewide.

One of the reasons we don’t get maximum cooperation when we want to get something done in our personal or business lives is because we don’t ask for what we want – face to face, directly.

That leaves spouses and partners to guess what the other wants.  

Employees to wonder what their associates expect of them.

It’s not magic.

Ask face to face and you are more likely to get to yes faster.

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If you’re like me, you have no doubt read self-help books to get organized, accomplish more and be happier.

But if the be happier part didn’t result, it may be because the getting things done part can make us a productive dynamo but not often a happier person.

In fact, as crazy as this may sound in our workaday world, planning less can actually help us be happier and it’s not going to kill us or get us fired.

We over plan, over dream, over problem-solve, over produce and focus too much on ourselves.

It’s the old saw about gaining control by giving up control.

Chances are we have plenty of experience to handle that which we need to get done every day without making it a compulsion.

Last week I saw a video by an author/lecturer who said have 3 goals a day, 3 goals a week, 3 goals a … and he went on and on tacking on more goals.

It may be the other way around if happiness is your end goal.

Be comfortable in your ability to get things done and think a lot less about it.

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Why is it that vacations and holidays are on list of the most stressful things in our lives according to the Holmes-Rahe Scale of Life Stress Inventory? 

They are supposed to be stress reducers, right?

Take the test and see how many points you rack up to see if you are at risk of illness, moderately at risk or only slightly at risk.

Motivational speakers and authors have made a fortune trying to help us cope with things that will help us in handling life’s stressors.

And remarkably, the generation that suffers most from stress is young Millennials.  Their lives have all the challenges of their parents plus the constant presence of digital connection and staying connected socially.

Here is the way to put a major crimp in life’s stressors:

1. Accept whatever you see without giving in to the temptation to characterize it as good or bad.  Postponing the “good/bad” impulse allows us to avoid the inevitable stressors associated with such characterizations.
2. Temporarily forget what you want and get involved in the experience of living in the present.

Most, not all, of the major stressors on the Holmes-Rahe Scale can be reduced if you practice not rushing to a “good/bad” opinion on that which occurs in life and momentarily forgetting about getting what you want.

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1. We like others for how they make us feel not because of who they are.
2. The person who thinks it is all about them is making a big mistake in human relations because if it is all about them, then who is focused on the other person?
3. The most fascinating conversationalist at a party is not as rewarding as one person who shows sincere interest in you.
4. The best work meeting is about the interests of the people attending rather than the ramblings, thoughts, desires or orders of the person running it.
5. A loved one cannot resist the person who makes them feel good about themselves.

AOL CEO Tim Armstrong opened his mouth and offended two mothers who worked for him in a botched attempt to rationalize health care cuts.

To his credit, he quickly apologized and reinstated the program.

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie apologized many times for putting the state residents through the George Washington Bridge scandal.

Today, apologizing is becoming a political and public strategy instead of a heartfelt way to say, “I’m sorry”.

Apologies are most meaningful when they have these elements:

1. Make amends first.  Promising to do better, be better or change is not as meaningful as making those changes before you pick the right time to apologize.
2. Fix what you’re sorry for.  Talking about it is empty.
3. Keep your word.  In our modern world, the apology is the end all.  But a real apology is just the beginning.  Do what you say you’re going to do to add real meaning to remorse.
4. Expect nothing from the person you are apologizing to.  The apology is for you.  Just as letting go of anger benefits us more than the people we are angry with, making an apology relieves us from hurt that can damage relationships and self-esteem.

Sorry + why + what you’re going to do about it is the best apology every time.

Being loving or expressing love to others transforms us into compassionate people more able to live life in real time.

A loving attitude tends to eclipse more ego-centered behavior that eventually can wind up coming out as ruminations about things that don’t make us very happy.

Just as important is to love oneself.

The deficit of self-esteem is growing to epidemic proportions.

Proceed carefully.  If you rely on someone else to bolster how you feel about yourself, you can become co-dependent to them.

Work this list today:

1. Forgive yourself. 
2. Make positive statements about you and back them up with evidence. 
3. Look past material things to define who you are.
4. Accept yourself as who you are today (you can always be better tomorrow). 
5. Have the courage to be who you are with everyone.
6. Think of 3 positive ways to describe yourself. 
7. Practice receiving love from others. 
8. Do what you love. 
9. Treat yourself no less than the way you would treat a puppy dog. 

10. Never compare yourself to others. 

11. Always do your best but stop trying to be perfect

Even doing one of these things better can be transformational.

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It’s not your imagination.

We really do live in a world where people are focused on themselves.

In prehistoric days when Dale Carnegie wrote his famous book How To Win Friends and Influence People one of his powerful messages was to talk in terms of the other person’s interests.

Today, you almost don’t have time to interrupt self-absorbed people to practice that very human relations principle because so many folks are talking about themselves incessantly.

On the excellent HBO series Girls Lena Dunham brings us a scene where her friend Marnie played by Allison Williams calls to tell her she got a new cat.  Lena’s character Hannah says “I can’t talk right now” but Marnie goes right on talking about herself without missing a beat.

How do you handle people who suck the energy out of relationships by making it all about them?

1. Keep focused on your own inner emotions at least part of the time.  If you don’t give it all away, you’ll feel less drained.
2. When there is a break in the conversation, jump in with what you want to talk about.  Warning:  like Marnie, they may just go on talking about themselves. 
3. If this person wants something from you, be careful what you promise.  Only do what you can do and want to do.
4. Set a time limit and get out.  When you begin to feel drained, exit the conversation.  You choose the time you will spend listening to someone else go on about themselves.
5. If a person oversteps your boundaries by being focused on him or herself on a regular basis, it may be time to move on.  There are still person-centered people in the world.  Perhaps it’s time to find one.

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