Marvin Windows and Doors is a family-owned company that made it through the recession without laying anyone off. 

And recently, they gave their employees – all of them – their first profit-sharing checks in four years.  Each one of their 2,573 employees got a check for $311.

Marvin Windows and Doors valued their employees over profits.

They did it by cutting back hours for hourly workers, did away with some perks, cut salaried employee salaries including top executives and even family members.  They made these moves to break even until things got better.

And all this wasn’t done to just be nice guys.  They saw it as giving Marvin Windows and Doors a competitive advantage allowing them to keep experienced workers as competitors were getting rid of theirs.

This is a feel good story and in a time of venture capital, greedy Wall Street and a changing world economy, it is heartening to remember that taking the road less traveled renews our faith in businesses that put people first.

“It’s a recession when your neighbor loses his job; it’s a depression when you lose your own” – Harry S. Truman

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Work is a major source of stress for 65% of adults according to a new survey by the American Psychological Association.

The numbers don’t lie.

39% blame too heavy a workload.  33% blame the demands of work for interfering with family or personal time.  There are salary issues.  Advancement issues and workplace stressors. 

Life today is stressful. 

Millennials are thought to be the most stressed out generation because of their addiction to constant mobile connection, entering the workplace as jobs are disappearing and their own personal penchant for not giving up on chasing their dreams.

So what to do?

In addition to the common stress relievers (relaxation techniques, exercise, mind over matter), there are these:

1. Retrain the brain.  Our pathways change for better or worse as we adopt certain behaviors so a major effort should be made to literally rethink the way we confront and deal with stress because there is a definitive neurological connection that programs our brain.
2. Laughter.  None other than Mayo Clinic recommends it.  We’re getting so technical about how to relieve stress that we forget the best solution of all – a good laugh.  Forward thinking companies, the kind that Millennials yearn to work for such as Google make play and playfulness part of the workday.
3. Under commit and over deliver in family and personal matters.  We try to make up to loved ones for the time we work and the stress that results by overcommitting.  We have the capability of removing that stress which then allows us to over deliver to the ones closest to us.  And then we do it stress free.

“It’s not stress that kills us, it is our reaction to it” 
– Hans Selye

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It really isn’t possible to think yourself out of being a worrier. 

In fact, it may make you worry even more.

That’s not to say reading or learning about how to conquer fear and worry isn’t a good beginning.  But no one ever thought their way out of what is eating us alive from inside out.

The secret is to take action.

One-step at a time.  From the time we wake up to the time we go to bed.  And it’s doable.

Dale Carnegie always said that he had 50% of his worries vanish once he came up with a clear, definitive decision about what was bothering him.  And another 40% vanished when he started to carry out that decision.

This is pure gold for worriers.

Banish 90% of your fears by taking these four steps:

1. Writing down precisely what you are worried about.
2. Writing down what you can do about it.
3. Deciding what to do.
4. Starting immediately to carry out that decision.

“Do the thing you fear to do and keep on doing it…that is the quickest and surest way ever yet discovered to conquer fear” – Dale Carnegie

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We’ve been hearing it for years now, the next generation is self-absorbed.

Correction:  All generations are becoming more self-absorbed.

The latest issue of Newsweek has a cover story about “The ‘Me, Me, Me’ Wedding” about how America is exporting its bridezilla culture.

You don’t have to hear it from me – people are more self-absorbed than ever.  It makes life tough for anyone on the other end of such behavior.

Two things.

One, no need to suffer from people who are not interested in you.  The antidote is to show interest in them.  It’s good human relations and the person who can practice effective human relations with others is still happier, more promotable, and a cherished friend.

Two, it is not necessary to compete with others for attention.  When we become comfortable in our own shoes, we are less vulnerable to the attention grabbing techniques of self-absorbed people and more content.

“I recognize that I have the ability to be selfish, but I also recognize that you can’t be happy if you only care about yourself at the expense of other people” – Russell Brand

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A 26-year old girl was interviewed on a New York City radio station a few weeks ago.

She has brain cancer.

The disease has been in remission but it has returned.  While she battles the disease she says that despite her youth, she is aware of the diminishing time she has left.

She asked her doctor what she should do now that the disease is back and his reply was to do whatever she wants to do.

This brave young lady has discovered the real meaning of living every day to its fullest.

What is our excuse?

After hearing her testimony, I can’t think of any reason to waste another moment, day, year or life not doing what you want to do.

It isn’t the number of years; it is the quality of the years.

It isn’t the regrets but the satisfaction.

There are lots of things that can’t be controlled in life but one of the things that can is our ability to grab the next day and live it to the fullest.

In the case of this brain cancer patient, she has no choice.

For everyone else, it is the choice we must make.

“Life is a terminal condition.  We’re all going to die.  Cancer patients just have more information, but we all, in some ways, wait for permission to live” – Kris Karr

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Danny Briere, the Philadelphia Flyers hockey player, had hoped to play out his long contract with the teammates he loves in a city that he has embraced and that has embraced him.

Little did he know when he signed with the team that there would someday be a new NHL collective bargaining agreement that would make it accretive for some teams to buy out expensive players like Briere and reduce their salary cap.

The Flyers don’t want him to go to a competitor but they can’t afford not to take the $6 million salary cap expense off their books.

For Briere, the single father who shares custody of three young boys, he has had months to speculate and hope that it wouldn’t come to this.  But how Briere has handled fate is textbook for the rest of us.

He’s been decisive – the kids stay in their home in Haddonfield, NJ outside of Philadelphia to continue their education.

They and he must accept that he will not be there during the hockey season – he’ll visit instead.

He’s likely to sign a short contract with another nearby east coast team and who knows, maybe he returns to the Flyers.  (The collective bargaining agreement forbids the team taking a buyout from also then resigning the player for a period of one year).

Briere hoped against hope.

Accepted fate.

Showed gratitude by warmly thanking the fans.

And did what we must all do when faced with change.

“I have no regrets … I’m moving forward” – Danny Briere

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I don’t know about you, but I have already heard so many “keys” to success in my life that there isn’t a “key” chain big enough to hold them all.

I’m not saying I haven’t heard some very good ones, but I’ve never heard the one killer thing that can always guarantee success.

All that has changed.

Let me give you two examples.

At the recent US Open Golf Tournament, the winner was the 32-year-old British golfer named Justin Rose who when he was a teen missed the cut in his first 21 professional golf tournaments. 

He had never won a PGA “major”. 

But on that day, Father’s Day, Rose prevailed and overcame his previous mistakes, a tough golf course and the missteps of competitors.  Upon winning, Rose looked to the heavens in a salute to his father.

And there is Lionel Shriver, the controversial but very successful author who couldn’t get arrested by a publishing company.  Her first book, We Need To Talk About Kevin was rejected by 20, 30, 40 … even more publishers who wouldn’t take it.  Finally HarperCollins took a chance.

Shriver didn’t beat herself up. 

She didn’t reinvent herself.

She didn’t throw the book away and try something else.

She stuck with it, prevailed until she succeeded.

Like Rose, the golfer, who put his head down and kept playing. 

No excuses.

No discouragement. 

No quiting allowed.

My friends, the one indispensible secret to success is to never quit, never give up chasing the dream and never, ever be talked out of your success.

“You can win it in the late innings, if you never quit” – Robert Forster

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78% of 2,698 people in a VitalSmarts survey report an increase of rudeness online.

Rudeness and insulting behavior are ending friendships and two out of five social media users have cut off contact after an online fight. One in five have reduced face-to-face contact after an online altercation.

Manners lag behind technology and with 67% of online adults now using social media (Pew Study) this is becoming a problem.

Some of the survey respondents said they were still not talking to family members after two years after a fight that resulted from posting an embarrassing photo of a man’s sister when the instigator refused to remove it and in fact sent it to all his contacts for spite.

When people talk about workplace associates on social media, it invariably gets back to the subjects.

There are ways to play nice and play it safe at the same time:

1. When you feel a conversation is getting too emotional to be out there online, it’s time to take it face-to-face.
2. From VitalSmarts:  three rules that could improve conversations online were to avoid monologues, replace lazy, judgmental words, and cut personal attacks particularly when emotions were high.
3. Don’t hit send if what you send cannot be read before a jury in a court of law – this one works for me every time because it forces one to think about how a third party might perceive what is being said.
4. When it doubt, leave it out.

Increasingly our lives are online and on social media sites, there is no Emily Post yet but there is emerging “netiquette”.

“Everything I think of now is too rude to actually say” – Craig Ferguson

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That 84-year old Florida grandmother who won a $590 million Powerball jackpot recently is taking a lump sum settlement of $370 million due to her age.

That ought to buy a lot of happiness, right?

It’s not starting out that way.  The young, gracious woman who let Gloria MacKenzie ahead of her because she didn’t want to see an old woman standing in line too long is getting nothing for her consideration.

What’s worse, she was buying tickets for an office pool and her fellow workers are not too happy.

Of course, even if the winner didn’t get to cut ahead, there is no guarantee the good Samaritan would have won the jackpot – tickets are sold from a main computer by the split second. 

All of this highlights the reality that most people who win large lottery jackpots wind up destitute.  Now, that wouldn’t make a good TV commercial, but it is true.

People change when they have so much money and those around them change as well.  The winner often winds up the loser; sometimes homeless and without a penny left as incredible as it may seem.

But one sure way to hit the jackpot is to take a gamble on your ability to follow your dream.

It’s a sure thing and it is far more rewarding in the long run.

“Forget the lottery.  Bet on yourself instead” – Brian Koslow

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Once we fail, we understandably protect ourselves against more failure.

This can be an unintended consequence of self-preservation but what it is not is a good way to succeed.

We have human potential every day. 

Endless possibilities are out there at all times.

And we have to put it out there at all times to succeed.

When I taught the Dale Carnegie Course I used to lead a chorus of chants with class members that included the phrase “act enthusiastic and you’ll be enthusiastic”.

Why?  Because we can’t think ourselves into enthusiasm.  We have to do it first and feel it as a consequence of taking action.

The same is true of success.

If we disregard the fear of failure. 

Push forward with abandon. 

Chase our dreams. 

Let no one stop us. 

Settle for nothing less than fearlessness, we automatically succeed whether we attain our specific goal at the time or not.

To live this life to the fullest, we must live this life to the fullest.

“The man (person) who goes farthest is generally the one who is willing to do and dare” – Dale Carnegie

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Perhaps you like The Haggler who writes in The New York Times as much as I do.

The column takes up for the often tough fights by ordinary consumers to get satisfaction from companies that have wrong them.

The other day, something caught my eye that I want to share with you.  It was one of the most effective ways to show your dissatisfaction with a product or service without having to turn yourself into something you don’t want to be.

The Haggler unsuccessfully tried to get the attention of DailyCandy and turned to his Twitter account.  He sent a post asking for someone to help.  

No one ever replied.

Then, as an experiment, The Haggler turned to Twitter and tried the same thing with a company he had no complaint with but that had a good reputation for customer service.

He also changed his approach.

The Haggler tweeted the following:

“I am not happy with Quicken Loans! And you can tell because I used an exclamation point!

No shouting.  No obscenities.  No threats or boorish behavior.

The response came within hours:  “How can I help?”

True, you have to be dealing with a company that cares, but the fastest way to complain about a consumer issue is to be honest, direct and public in your request for attention.

“It’s not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change” – Charles Darwin

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A new Harris Poll Happiness Index indicates that Americans are not as happy today as we were just two years ago.

Minorities, the disabled and college grads were less happy than they were previously.  Only a third of the poll said they were “very happy”.

It could be the job market.  Or the sequester or for that matter political issues like immigration.  Women were happier than men (35% vs. 32%).  Independents (32%) were not has happy as Democrats and Republicans (35%).

What is happiness?

One of the best definitions I have ever seen is from Martin Seligman, a well-known researcher in positive thinking and author of Authentic Happiness.  He says it comes in three parts:

1. Pleasure (the “feel good” stuff)
2. Engagement (“good life” or work, family, friends and hobbies)
3. Meaning (using our strengths to contribute to a larger purpose)

Of the three, engagement and meaning are the most important to living a happy life.

Sometimes it takes a roadmap to find where we want to go.

“Happiness is not something ready made.  It comes from your own actions” – The Dalai Lama

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Quicken Loans, one of the most lauded new age companies for customer service teaches their employees that “clients don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care”.

That is awesome advice not just for business but also for personal relationships.

Too often we care but we don’t show it.

We care, but we don’t say it.

Imagine how our lives would be different from today on if we adopted the mantra, “first, show you care” before we try to persuade, dissuade, sell, ask or anything else for that matter.

Dale Carnegie always said his human relations principles are worth nothing if they are not applied sincerely and the same goes for this.

So, try it today.

Do no asking or telling until you show you care.

“Nobody cares how much you know, until they know how much you care” — Theodore Roosevelt

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Arguments often degenerate into a poorly run debate in which each side sees their goal as trumping the other person’s previous claim.

My mother used to say, “You can never talk a person out of their politics” and was she ever right.

In fact, we may not be able to convince anybody that our position is the right one on many other things.

So, change strategies.

The best way to get someone to listen to our point of view is to acknowledge right up front that we heard something they said that opposes what we believe.

Most people argue to be heard so if we can somehow communicate, “message received” they are more likely to hear us.

Arguments can turn into shouting matches, insults and hard feelings so the goal is to make sure the other person is heard before we speak.

And to be realistic.

You don’t have to “win” an argument; you just have to make your case because if you become the “winner” somebody has to lose.

The best way to win an argument is to avoid it.

The best way to communicate your feelings, thoughts or ideas is to acknowledge the other person’s comments first.

“No one can persuade another to change.  Each of us guards a gate of change that can only be opened from the inside.  We cannot open the gate of another, either by argument or emotional appeal” – Marilyn Ferguson

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Researchers from Washington State University analyzed a billion tweets during American sporting events including the 2013 Super Bowl and discovered that being confident makes you more popular than being right.

What’s worse is that the louder or more confident the tweets sounded, the more trustworthy and popular they were.

I know this is Twitter, but Twitter imitates life these days.

In life, the loud, confident person looks like they know what they are talking about even if they are all wet.

So the question is:  should we act more confident and speak in louder tones to make people believe us and like us?

First, a thought.

What if we were louder, sounded more confident AND knew what we were talking about?

And that’s the secret to being a persuasive person.

All style and no substance is a dead end.

Before trying to persuade another, make sure you have a legitimate argument that can be substantiated.

“To be persuasive we must be believable; to be believable we must be credible; credible we must be truthful” – Edward R. Murrow

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A family member or dear friend cannot be replaced, but in healing we learn how to accept their death and find a new place for them in our lives as we move on.

But death isn’t the only great personal loss.

The loss of a job or career can be catastrophic.  Those who successfully move beyond career crises rebuild their lives not just searching for a new job.

The loss of youth must be dealt with by everyone and not just the elderly.  A 40-year-old is not a 21-year-old and those who navigate through aging in a healthy way do it by looking forward to the future not being stuck in the past.

The loss of a marriage or a meaningful relationship calls upon us to first heal and then learn from what may have gone wrong so that we can become better mates and partners.

The secret to overcoming great personal loss is not the obvious replacement of what was lost with something else.

Some things just can’t be replaced.

We surmount great personal loss when we add some great personal gain. 

Nothing is sadder than a person who fails to create situations in which they gain new experiences, opportunities and friends.

Loss must be offset by gains.

“Death is not the greatest loss in life.  The greatest loss is what dies inside us while we live” – Norman Cousins

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I heard Claude Julien, the Boston Bruins hockey coach who won a Stanley Cup a few years ago and has led his team to the finals again this year, say he has had his present job for six years and has been fired 5 times. 

It goes with the territory.

Julien is right. 

We no longer live in an era where we can expect to work for one to three companies in our entire career.  Millennials are lucky to find a good job and Baby Boomers have worked for as many as three times the number of employers than their parents worked for.

What’s noteworthy about Julien’s comments is that getting fired is now an accretive part of pursuing your career ambitions.

But we have to change the stigma that surrounds it.

I was once fired for increasing a major market radio station’s ratings from 400,000 listeners to 1.1 million.  That’s right, fired for succeeding.  And that happens a lot today because decisions on firings are made by venture capital owners and market leaders and by the companies who follow their lead.

By the way, the guy who fired me murdered his wife and killed himself for allegedly stealing from the boss.  No consolation but it shows you that the decision maker doesn’t always think straight.

So, time for a change of attitude.

Getting fired today is not all that personal an affront.  It’s often an opportunity.

Do not waste time wallowing in the hurt and self-pity that can be generated by losing your job and refocus on the wonderful opportunity to move on and succeed another day.

“You’re fired!  No other words can so easily and succinctly reduce a confidence, self-assured executive to an insecure, groveling shred of his former self” – Frank Louchheim

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We have pills for just about every condition and malady that human’s can think of and yet we don’t have a true happy pill.

As doctors will readily tell you, when drug companies test antidepressants to win FDA approval, the results almost always show that a placebo (an inert pill or what we call a sugar pill) turns out to be just as effective as these powerful and expensive drugs.

It turns out the mind is the most potent medication of all.

So, here are a few “happy pills” which have only one side effect – addiction to them:

1. Viktor Frankl survived years of incarceration during World War II and lost his new bride to death at a concentration camp.  Yet he emerged with the notion that life is still worth living and wrote Man’s Search for Meaning to drive home the point.  And, what is our problem again?  I often think about this when I have something big draining my happiness.  Take this in the morning and it puts big problems in perspective the rest of the day.
2. We hate when cable and phone companies “bundle” their services forcing us to buy something we don’t want with something we do.  So unbundle the need to have everything make you happy when even one small thing can feel just as good.  Everything going our way is not necessary to be happy.  Just recognizing one thing that does will do.
3. When friends disappoint, forgive.  The act of forgiving makes us happy every time we employ it.
4. Dealing with life’s problems – not necessarily solving them – makes us feel empowered and therefore happy.  Some problems go away on their own.  Some cannot and therefore we must learn to accept but most others take much longer to be resolved so ask, “Why postpone happiness?”
5. The most potent “happy pill” is making someone else happy.  A friend used to call me and say, “You’re a good man”.  Do a nice deed.  Try to surprise someone this very minute – an action that will make them happy.  The little known rule is that happiness is as contagious as a yawn.  You don’t have to be on the receiving end to get the benefit.

Sometimes medications, therapy and the warmth of a friend can do wonders, but when we find the need to be real happy real quick, try one of these “happy pills”.

“The greatest degree of inner tranquility comes from the cultivation of love and compassion. The more we care for the happiness of others, the greater is our own sense of well-being” — Dalai Lama

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We have information on-demand through Google.

And TV shows and movies on-demand from Netflix.

How can we get self-confidence on-demand for those important times when we need an extra boost?

1. Repeat the following mantra:  “I’ve done it before so I can do it again”.
2. Think of similar times when you’ve achieved something that took confidence even if it does not directly apply to the situation at hand (i.e., you need an extra boost of confidence for an upcoming presentation but you have no precedent so imagine when you, say, were a really good friend to someone in need). 
3. The thing about confidence is that it is not about finding something in the present that you did well previously.  Confidence knows no such limitations.  Therefore, anything that makes us feel good about ourselves is self-confidence on-demand.
4. Your secret weapon:  Just trying is a powerful injection of self-confidence.  No one ever said we had to speak before a group, go to a new school or start a new job, go on an interview or meet someone new first before we had the self-confidence to do so.

As Teddy Roosevelt said, “Believe you can and you’re halfway there.”

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The one thing that must never happen is to allow another person to cross over our boundaries.

Boundaries are the things that matter to us and constitute the essence of our being – our values, our ethics, our morals.

Some people have a way of pushing these boundaries and sometimes they inappropriately cross over them.  That’s when it’s time to defend.

Rule 1:  No one may cross your boundaries.  No one, no matter and particularly how close to you their relationship may be.

Rule 2:  If they do, their efforts will be pushed back.

Rule 3:  Continued attempts to violate your boundaries will lead to a suspension and eventual end of your relationship and the abuse.

Rule 4:  Set up an imaginary virtual boundary on the values, ethics and morals that make us who we want to be (a mind picture).  Then when another person gets uncomfortably close to your boundaries, send a strong message that you will walk away from that kind of behavior if it doesn’t stop immediately.  If it continues, you must act.

Sexual harassment.  Verbal and elder abuse.  Abuse that results from drinking, drugs or other extenuating circumstances are serious violations of your airspace.

But things that make us feel badly about ourselves and disrespect for our personal boundaries also constitute violations of individual boundaries and should be terminated.

Employers and coworkers who degrade, manipulate or blatantly disrespect us are also abusers and their efforts can lead to a diminution of self-esteem and confidence.

Fortunately most people largely respect the boundaries of others, but for the odd person who knows no boundaries, it is our responsibility to recognize the intrusion, stop it and end the relationship if necessary.

This is also an important thing to teach children who are particularly vulnerable.

 “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent” – Eleanor Roosevelt

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