They say there are no originals ideas.

Only the same things expressed in different ways.

If that is true, then more value should be placed on what makes us different from other people instead of what makes us the same.  A lesson that should be taught to children and not lost on adults.

What makes us “original” is to be unique.

Authentic.

Able to channel our individual expression into what we do.  Unfortunately, it’s a rare workplace that rewards being “you-nique”.  Apple does.  Google does.  Zappos does.  Most do not.

So, how to be yourself when it is not always encouraged or rewarded:

• Get to know the voice inside of you and welcome it when you hear it.  The most important part of being “you-nique” is to recognize when your ideas, thoughts and actions are different from others.
• Have the courage to express your “you-nique” ideas and thoughts.  This is where good human relations pays off.  You don’t just bowl people over; you expose them to your unique thoughts by being considerate of their feelings.  How To Win Friends and Influence People is a great way to become an expert at human relations.
• Look for the uniqueness in others around you and encourage it.  It’s not just good enough for us to be the special person we want to be, we must change the environment for all.

Once you try this, everything you do will be more meaningful and real.

“Always remember that you are absolutely unique.  Just like everyone else” – Margaret Mead

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Our world is obsessed with happiness.

How to get it. 

How not to lose it.

How to give it to others.

Whatever works is what I call good inspiration.  Sometimes, however, we oversimplify something simple that even comes to people who have lost their focus.

1. Happiness is like a butterfly.  The more we pursue it, the more it evades us.  The answer is to sit back, let go and let it land on our shoulders.  Translated that means stop making happiness an “A” priority.  Letting go and looking for moments to be happy – now that’s the “A”.
2. We can become happy by association – when we surround ourselves with people who are grateful, centered and joyful, we cannot help but to become happy like them.  That means, we become like our environment so choose your environment carefully.
3. Even successful people don’t always look happy.  Sometimes when Tiger Woods makes an amazing putt, he is able to wipe that grin of self-satisfaction off his face so quickly, it is a shame.  The so-called golf psychologist, Dr. Bob Rotella, tells his professional golf clients to do one thing when they are playing golf – put a smile on their face.  It is amazing the results this has had for them and that we can have when we try it in our lives for a day.

“The summit of happiness is reached when a person is ready to be what he (or she) is” –Erasmus

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My friend used to jokingly say, “If I didn’t have bad luck, I’d have no luck at all”.

Not quite.

There is misfortune that can always be turned into opportunity down the road.  And there is self-reliance, our ability to take ownership of both the good and not so good that happens in our lives.

Bad things happen and it doesn’t take us long in life to learn this.  What we tend to have trouble with is how to turn disadvantages into advantages which is why I wrote my book Out of Bad Comes Good – The Advantages of Disadvantages.

But terminal bad luck can be cured – fairly easily.

• Take this test – spend the time to investigate anyone else’s “good luck” and you will find that it often if not always followed one or more unfortunate sequence of events – some even terrible.  In other words, persistence always leads us to good fortune eventually so this is what motivates us not to give up or turn sour.
• Talking about bad luck is of no use.   I had a dear friend who suffered from bladder cancer for years but you’d never know it.  He refused to spend more than a few seconds on the topic if you asked him about it.  Know what his secret was?  He interrupted and asked about you.  There is great wisdom in this approach to avoid being a victim.  Focus on the other person not on ills and misfortunes.

Out of bad comes good – always and in all ways.

In the meantime, there’s a good attitude to keep us prepared to succeed.

“Chance never helps those who do not help themselves” — Sophocles

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Last week one of my readers shared a thought that resonated so powerfully with him that he wanted to tell me about it.

The motivational speaker Matthew Kelly coined the term “become the best version of yourself” and my reader said “Whenever I get the chance I share that line with a friend, family member or co-worker who seems to be down and out or in need of a pep talk. I am batting a thousand with that phrase, and it his truly changed my life and helped me to inspire others”.

It’s the only purpose in life that is worthy of our hard work and dedication.  We live to become a better version of the person we were yesterday.

Ironically enough, the way to get to “best” is to first take the eulogy test:

1. When you die, how do you want to be remembered?

2. What kind of a person would you have wanted to become?

3. What personal traits are you leaving to those you love the most?

4. What is your strongest attribute?

Then, live on and dedicate yourself to these things that you deem most important.

It’s impressive to be rich and die rich.

But you are rich when you can chip away at becoming better at what’s important to you.

Even our smartphones and mobile devices get better each time they are reinvented.

Shouldn’t we?

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life” – Steve Jobs

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If those around us aren’t sometimes the most deadly influence in our lives then we are.

Negative thoughts, comments that deflate our confidence and the word “can’t” often rob us of happiness and success whether we hear it from others or ourselves.

It’s everywhere.

We’ve seen it and we’ve probably unwittingly done it to others.

But there is a workaround that turns negative energy back into a positive force for good.

1. Learn to put a stop/loss on negative comments (“you can’t do that”, “no one ever does that”, “you’re too young” (or too old), “that will never work”, etc.   I’m sure you can fill in the blank here.
2. Then once you’ve learned to recognize self-limiting language the moment you hear it, recycle failure talk into a type of motivational compost that will decompose and turn into the stuff that helps you grow and thrive (i.e., “I don’t care what she thinks, I’ll make that decision”, “I don’t feel too young, I can do this now”, “It doesn’t matter if no one has done this before, I’ll be the first”).

Always be on the lookout for self-limiting language in others and even more so in yourself.

The mind is more powerful than the deflating words of others and the self-destructive thoughts we often harbor in our heads.

Compost helps plants and flowers bloom.

Recycling the negative energy in our lives with a purpose helps us grow happier.

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Sometimes I hate to assume that things will always go my way.

I’m writing this on a plane that has Wi-Fi in the back, but not in the front.  Can I give my upgrade back?

Or that something or someone you are looking forward to disappoints.

And when an employer fails to appreciate our extra efforts even when we have saved their bacon.

Sometimes an illness, personal tragedy, relationship or family crisis can not only ruin a day and adversely alter the course of our lives.

But there is much that we can do.

1. Problems cannot always be solved right away so a better use of our time and effort may be simply understanding and dealing with a disappointment, crisis or problem.
2. Avoid the temptation to expect that nothing else will go wrong because when something goes wrong, something else always seems to follow closely behind.  I use the imagery of a baseball team out in the field.  Those players never stand there and say, “don’t hit the ball to me, I might make an error”.  It’s the other way around.  They want the ball so we should say, bring it on, I’m ready.
3. Allow for sadness or disappointment, because it can be curative if we don’t dwell on it.

Life is like a roller coaster with ups and downs.

Some ups take us to new heights.

Some downs are really a test of new depths.

Most are bumps up and bumps down.

It’s the relatively small price we pay for all the good things that happen to us day in and day out while we are otherwise distracted by life getting in our way.

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Last week a 12-year old Florida girl committed suicide after years of being taunted on social media by her friends.

Her parents pulled her out of school, changed schools and sought psychological help, but in the end even that didn’t work.

This pretty and intelligent girl who had to quit the cheerleading squad among other activities because of this bullying decided one day not to get on the school bus and keep walking to an abandoned building where she ascended a tower and jumped to her death.

News accounts say there may be as many as 15 people who went to social media to encourage the young victim to kill herself and authorities are considering whether to formally charge them with a crime.

Cyberbullying is more common than we think and even when it doesn’t end in the ultimate tragedy, it adversely affects young people at a time in their lives when they are trying to build self-confidence.

What’s a parent to do?

1.    Don’t be so fast to put cellphones in the hands of children.  Admittedly there is a lot of parental and peer group pressure to do so, but resist it.  Be a parent.

2.    Closely monitor screen time and put parental safeguards in place.  Unfortunately, this victim’s parents did that but the message still got through on her mobile devices.

3.    Teach self-confidence by example.  We teach sports.  And how to dress, clean your rooms, etc.  Why not teach self-confidence.  The best way I have found is to cultivate the culture of looking into the mirror and giving gratitude for what you have while you stare into your own eyes.  Try it.  It’s powerful.

4.    By example show young people the positive power of social media – a massive tool that also helps build self-esteem when used properly.

Here is a little story I favor that may be helpful.

For some reason some people feel emboldened when they communicate via email and social media.  They say cowardly things that they would never say in person – I’m speaking about adults, now. 

Most online insults are not replicated face to face because bullies are weak people without the courage to speak their evil in person.

99% of people are good and mean well and for everybody else you stand up to a bully by rejecting them.

Before the digital age that might mean pushing them back.

Today, we delete them and their inappropriate comments.

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Norman Cousins was a prolific author who found himself battling cancer. 

His prognosis was not good.  His imminent death was inevitable.  It was only a matter of time.

Somewhat resigned to his fate, Cousins ordered the nurses to allow him to bring in old Marx Brothers comedies to be viewed on an old fashioned movie projector from his hospital room – obviously, this was before the digital age.

From all accounts, Cousins passed the time waiting to die watching the zany Marx Brothers go through their antics.

There was only one problem.

Cousins forgot to die.  In fact, he lived to hear his doctors say that, miraculously, he was cured.

A one-time oddity?

Many years later Cousin had a heart attack and was being transferred by ambulance to a local hospital.  The attendants tried to reassure him that everything would be fine but Cousin’s told the EMTs not to worry because he’d just keep laughing and would not die.

Again, he escaped death.

Many physicians will testify that a person’s attitude toward adversity has a positive effect on their psychological as well as physical heath. 

But the time to keep our sense of humor is long before we face adversity because some laughter each day will also keep the doctor away.

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If you’ve ever attended a motivational program, read an inspirational book or saw a movie that inspired, you know first hand how effective a shot of positive energy can be.

Unfortunately, the buzz doesn’t always last long.  It’s often not transformational.  Life goes on when we forget the positive message.

When we hear something inspirational, motivational or down right life changing, how do we give it legs so its sticks with us?

“The road to life is always under construction” – one of my favorite inspirations because it shows that work ethic is good enough and that accomplishing the end goal is not necessary to be successful or even productive.   

“Make a life not a living” always sets me straight because it takes my type A personality and reminds me that if I turn it lose on personal matters not just career, my private life can be better.

“Be the fine person you are” was uttered by my best friend years ago and it sticks with me to this day because it reminds me that I don’t always have to be what other people expect of me to be a good person.

So here’s how I recall these life-changing inspirations and integrate them into my life.

I make them a short phrase or sentence.

Attach a benefit – you will see in my quotes above the benefit that is forever attached to the words.

One more thing.

There is inspiration all around us.  I get it every day when readers of this blog show gratitude for the writing.  I try to write back and share a benefit I received from their kind gesture.

The pep talk always works when it is short, memorable and has a specific benefit attached.

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Last week Robin Quivers, Howard Stern’s radio sidekick for the majority of his career, went on the air to say that she had been battling cancer for the past year.

The man known as a “shock jock” was visibly moved as he told the audience that he thought “we lost her”. 

Quivers said she had great doctors who helped her heal and that recently she was told by the doctor that she was – in her words – “cured”.

For the past year Quivers was working from a studio in her home and remained unseen on the video feed of Stern’s SiriusXM show. 

Great doctors had a lot to do with Quivers’ recovery.

But the line that was most touching and most memorable was when Quivers said, “People don’t understand how the people who love them save their lives.”  I love that.

Fighting illness is a tough job but medicine can only go so far.

The love of others is often the elixir that aids in extending life and making it better.

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Airlines are awful these days. 

And cable operators act as if they don’t care. 

Even your local doctor’s office may be not be immune to this disease we call “consumeritis” or poor customer service.

If you’re like me, you’ve been driven to the brink by people who seemingly don’t care and by customer service that is an affront.

But I share with you a technique I learned that is better, more effective and often leaves the purveyor of bad customer service more responsive and nicer.

It’s built on the kind of good human relations we value but it provides an effective way to stand up and be heard like never before.

1. Write or email the Vice President of Poor Service at the offending company or provider.  Do not call or text.  You can use Yelp and other social media to gain the attention of some companies that keep an employee watching for angry consumers but that’s not what I am talking about here.
2. It doesn’t matter if the poor service company or provider has or doesn’t have a Vice President of Poor Service – more often than not the person on the receiving end will see that your letter gets to precisely the right person – something consumer’s rarely know. 
3. Write “confidential” on the envelope if using snail mail and “confidential” in the email text at the top.
4. Clearly state the problem without attacking the person who screwed up, the company or the industry.  Stay focused.
5. Give the Vice President of Poor Service a reputation to live up to with lines like “you probably value customer service as much as I do but sometimes things fall through the cracks and help is needed”.
6. Clearly state what you want in one line – no more than two.
7. Thank the Vice President of Poor Service for taking the time to read your message or letter and provide your contact information.

Writing to the Vice President of Poor Service has worked successfully for me for many times.

Once my office staff complained bitterly about the Pepsi machine in our cafeteria area that never worked right.  After making many complaints to the Pepsi Cola Bottler in Pennsauken, NJ to no avail, I wrote to the Vice President of Poor Service at Pepsi. 

One day my secretary called me out of a meeting to say that Roger Enrico, then the CEO of PepsiCo, was on the phone. 

Who knew that Enrico himself was the Vice President of Poor Service?  Such letters are usually sent up the chain of command not down as often happens when you go to the top and complain to a CEO.

Enrico proceeded to tell me personally that PepsiCo will not tolerate unhappy customers and he said he told the local distributor to replace the machine and keep it filled and working without fail.  Enrico said to call him if they screwed up again.

Then the local distributor called to apologize and beg me not to call Enrico with any further problems and he provided me with his home phone number.

Can anything that started so bad end so good?

If you have positive experiences like this and would like to share your advice, feel free to comment below and next time you get your ire up, try the 7 steps above as a very effective alternative that gets results.

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The gift of your time.

It doesn’t really cost us anything.

It makes others feel better.

And in giving our time we receive the benefits as well.

Lawyers and other professionals keep a log of their billable hours for commerce purposes.

If we kept a log of our time, how much of it would go to someone who is not paying us for it?

“You give but little when you give of your possessions. It is when you give of yourself that you truly give” – Kahlil Gibran

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Money won’t do it.

Botox won’t either.

And power may actually turn people away.

The most reliable and predictable way to make others like us, no – love us – is to increase our humility.

Few think of things this way, but then again the world is increasingly filled with unhappy rich, successful and powerful people that others don’t like.

I know a wealthy TV personality who not only hands out gift cards to restaurants at holiday time to support personnel he comes in contact with daily, but stops and talks to everyone – from guard to janitor the other 364 days a year – calling them by name, inquiring about their families and showing genuine interest.

Or the surgeon who slips away on “vacation” to perform clef palate operations for needy children here and in other countries.

If we were judged not on how much money we have, or how much power we possess but by how humble we try to be, what would be our grade?

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We have no problem buying a giant drink or a large portion of food when we’re hungry.

So could the menu for life be ordering up more of what we like the best?

Educators say, education is one of the few things in life where we want as little as possible for the money.  How many classes can I miss? 

Try that when you buy a car:  “Do I have to take the air conditioning that was included for the price of this vehicle”?  That’s never going to happen.  We’ll take as much as we can get for the money.

Life is no different.

Time to supersize life by doing more of the things that we want to do – the things that bring us pleasure, make us feel worthwhile, connect us to more people.

1. If you don’t like your work, do something about it.  Work consumes the largest amount of our time so if we hate it, no wonder we’re not loving life.  Accept no excuses.  Don’t make any.  Pursue a new path.
2. Spend more time with people you like and less time with people you don’t like.  I know, we can’t choose our relatives and sometimes we like our jobs but hate our bosses.  Think of it like this, if we increased the amount of time we spend with the people who make us happier, we’ve taken a second positive step toward supersizing our life.
3. Always have something to look forward to.  My office is on a golf course and I often see the same people playing the same course over and over again.  They look miserable (Ha! They probably look up at me at my desk and say the same thing).  Never live a moment without something to aspire to – a new place to go, a new friend to make, something you’ve never experienced before.
4. Finally, see how many accomplishments you can have each day.  A new recipe, solving a problem that has been plaguing you, breaking a sales record.  Accomplishments – not just big ones but little ones – all feel the same.  Good.

Four steps to a happier, more fulfilling life that is possible right now.

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Few respond positively to criticism.

That’s why Dale Carnegie’s most famous human relations principle is “don’t criticize, condemn or complain”.

Yet we all do it.

And it still doesn’t work.

What about constructive criticism?

It’s like being a good teacher.  The message will not be heard until the person on the receiving end wants to hear it.

According to Gregg Walker, Department of Speech Communication at Oregon State University, here are some guidelines for the critic:

• Understand why you are offering the criticism
• Put yourself in the other person’s shoes
• Direct your criticism to the present not the past
• Criticize the deed not the person

Guidelines for those on the receiving end of criticism:

• Acknowledge criticism that focuses on your behavior
• Work hard to avoid becoming defensive
• Seek ownership of solutions
• Use “I” messages to clearly communicate how you feel about the criticism

For more helpful guidelines, click here.

“He has a right to criticize, who has a heart to help” – Abraham Lincoln

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Dale Carnegie always said a person’s name is to him or her the sweetest and most important sound in any language.

And yet, we hardly use a person’s name.

Not in email.

Not in person.

Not in a restaurant when dealing with a waiter or waitress.

Not even with employees, associates and families.

If you’re up for it, go out of your way to use the person’s name you are addressing or communicating with.  They will like it – no, they will love it.  And just by being thoughtful, you will win their attention.

The world is becoming a massive collection of “friends’ on Facebook, followers and trendsetters.

In digital, in print or face-to-face, use a person’s name and you’ll get their attention without screaming.

Try it.

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When we think of patience, we often think of that fallibility lots of us have where we become impulsive and distracted.

There’s that and there’s the kind of patience that is required to succeed.

Perhaps it can be called resolve.

And almost everyone has some degree of resolve that was acquired through life’s experience.  It’s just a matter of digging down deep inside on-demand for more of it.

In baseball, great hitters wait for the “right” pitch – the one they can hit on their terms.  That’s why it is not unusual for a patient batter to foul off pitch after pitch to remain “alive” long enough to see the one pitch that they are looking for to hit out of the ballpark.

White Sox player Luke Appling fouled off 15 Bob Feller pitches during Feller’s 1940 opening day no-hitter.

The Phillies Richie Ashburn fouled off 14 straight pitches from Cincinnati hurler Corky Valentine in 1954 before drawing a walk.

Patience is not just waiting.

It is waiting to succeed.

“The two most powerful warriors are time and patience” — Tolstoy

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I once saw a demonstration of two people “attempting” to communicate with each other with the help of a psychologist.

Picture this.

The man on one side, the women on the other and the headshrinker in the middle.

He started first.

“What one thing do you really want to tell your wife about what makes you angry?” the psychologist asked.

He babbled on for a few minutes when the psychologist interrupted and said to his wife, “What is your husband trying to say to you?”

And she could not do it.  In fact, her inability to hear what he was trying to say inflamed the discussion.  And yes, the exact same thing happened when his wife tried to communicate what irked her with her husband. 

Communicating doesn’t just mean talking.

It also means, making sure the message is delivered and understood by the other party.

The “Sender” can help by capsulizing in one sentence the gist of his or her comments upon conclusion.

The “Receiver” can help by hearing the comments without prejudice – in other words, from the perspective of the “Sender” first and then give a response.

Our lives are full of communication tools and yet we often hear of broken relationships due to an inability to communicate.

A few hints:

1. Begin with something positive – nothing opens ears more than positivity.
2. Do not attack.
3. Be careful not to exaggerate because even a slight exaggeration gives the other person a reason to reject everything you’re saying.
4. Provide evidence of what makes you feel this way.
5. Focus on one topic – not everything including the kitchen sink.


“The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place”  – George Bernard Shaw

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There are so many books, apps and lectures designed to teach us to win the enthusiastic cooperation of others.

But here’s one I have used – it’s short, it’s sweet and it never fails to work.

Stand next to the person whose 100% cooperation you are seeking.

1. With their permission, ask if you can grasp their hand and then ask them to pull as hard as they can away from you while you pull in the opposite direction.  Point out that when this happens in life or at the workplace, the struggle becomes the only result.  No ground is gained.
2. Then continuing to clasp them by the hand, ask the other person not to pull away from you – just stand still.  Now, point out that even when people don’t consciously resist, they are not readily moving in the same direction.  They become deadweight.
3. Finally, ask the other person to move with you as you grasp their hand and pull in the same direction.  This illustrates how two people moving in the same direction can get there faster.

I’ve done this at meetings where you ask attendees to pair off and try it.

From now on, you have graphically instructed those around you that enthusiastic cooperation is an active function that requires moving forward not resisting and most importantly that standing still is not enthusiastic cooperation.

“People who work together will win, whether it be against complex football defenses, or the problems of modern society” – Vince Lombardi

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Some days it is easy to throw our hands up in the air and stop trying.

When everything becomes difficult and life becomes a struggle.

Get out of the rut.

1. Figure out the things you like to do – even in bad times – and do them every day.  Find 3 and make them a part of every day going forward.
2. Set the timer on your phone to go off every few hours and when it does make note of what you are doing at that time.  Do you like it?  Do this for several weeks or a month and you will soon discover the things that make you happy that you are not now doing.  Then start doing them.
3. When you hit a low, get busy doing things you like. 
4. Go to bed early after a bad day and hit reset the next morning.  Why drag out a bad day when you can rest up to start another good one tomorrow.
5. Have the courage to let go.  Again and again we discover the power of giving up control and so we may discover parts of life we could not have planned for.  You may have heard that Google Maps is getting ready to introduce a feature called Field Trip, a way to go beyond getting specific directions we seek and discovering places around us.  We need more of that.  Seek out the unscheduled moment because it may be your happiest one yet.

“The truth is that our finest moments are most likely to occur when we are feeling deeply uncomfortable, unhappy, or unfulfilled. For it is only in such moments, propelled by our discomfort, that we are likely to step out of our ruts and start searching for different ways or truer answers” – M. Scott Peck

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