Life can be miserable when we are spending part or all of our days with difficult people. 

If you work with them, sometimes you can quit. 

But it’s not so easy to fire the family.

Argumentative.

Putting their own self-interests ahead of yours or the group.

All talk, no listening.

Unwilling to bend, give or compromise.

Bullying behavior to dominate the discussion.

Disrespectful.

Not about to keep commitments.

We don’t know anyone like that, do we?

Here’s the antidote:

1. Don’t let their anger, incite your anger.  Walk away and get yourself together.
    
2. Don’t react.  Respond.  Think it through first.  Avoid smartphones, email, text messages while you are cooling it for a moment.
    
3. Change gears if it is within your power to do so by changing the conversation and stopping the diatribe. 
    
4. Difficult people win every time they make us angry, so it’s best to think about how they got to us and address it effectively.  When we do this, they fail every time.

PaperClip Communications warns of the fine line between having confidence in dealing with difficult people and giving attitude:

Confidence serves as armor. When you sow confidence you are displaying the ability to communicate and respond to information with poise, calm, and self-reliance.

Attitude serves as a weapon. When you give some “attitude” it can come off as an attack mechanism against the doubt or lack of confidence you may actually be feeling.  And, when you use this “weapon” it can sometimes be perceived as being difficult.

“A simple rule in dealing with those who are hard to get along with is to remember that this person is striving to assert his superiority; and you must deal with him from that point of view” – Alfred Adler

No one wants to follow a person who only has eyes for themselves.

It’s hard to make sacrifices for those who seem more interested in what they get from your efforts instead of what everyone gets.

As a disc jockey, I worked for a program director who installed a direct line into the studio to chew you out after every mistake.  Since you can’t have a telephone ring while a microphone may be open, this boss hooked the phone up to a 150 watt floodlight.

I can still feel the heat of that light flashing to this day.

A real leader begins with praise and honest appreciation.

This is the key to motivation.

It is impossible for one’s ears to remain closed when they are listening to some form of praise and appreciation.

So try it for a day.

No big announcements.

Just a little private experiment.

Try to use this one-two punch before asking someone to do something for you: 1) begin with sincere praise;  2) show appreciation.

Keep a tally and see if in one day you haven’t discovered what great leaders already know or as Dale Carnegie put it:

“Praise a man (person) for what he does well, then gradually help him with his shortcomings.  This method will work in an office, in a factory, in one’s home, with wife (spouse), children and parents, with almost anyone in the world.”

I heard a report on NPR yesterday that one-third of the 18-34 year old demographic confessed to using their mobile devices in the bathroom.

In fact, 9 percent of iPhone water damage comes from – well, accidently dropping their phones in the toilet.

I’m not sure there is much difference – except sanitary considerations – from reading a newspaper on the john and texting someone.

The real issue is not connectivity.

It’s balance.

And in a digital world people are so connected that it begs for more balance.

No time to disconnect and think.

This is personal and different for everybody.

As a Professor of Music Industry at USC I asked my students to give up their cellphones and iPods for two days.  They did it reluctantly.

When they reported back to their class on what happened when they went analog, many confessed to enjoying the respite although every student couldn’t wait to get their digital devices back.

Balance.

Quality of communication instead of tonnage.

Manageable and meaningful social networks not just large lists from which to harvest “friends”.

These issues have always been critical to effective communication even before the digital age.

Scott Peck reminds us “You cannot truly listen to anyone and do anything else at the same time.”

We can multitask some things but we cannot multitask and effectively communicate.

There was an article in Tuesday’s New York Times about how dads are increasingly making the decisions on what toys to give to their children as part of the changing family.

According to the article:

“For the first time in Barbie’s more than 50-year history, Mattel is introducing a Barbie construction set that underscores a huge shift in the marketplace. Fathers are doing more of the family shopping just as girls are being encouraged more than ever by hypervigilant parents to play with toys (as boys already do) that develop math and science skills early on.”

Or as psychiatrist Maurene O’Brien, quoted in the piece and consulted on the new Barbie set said, “Once it’s in the home, dads would very much be able to join in this play that otherwise they might feel is not their territory.”

Actually, the toys don’t matter all that much.

What matters is giving the gift of time.

That’s what I always liked about golf as a divorced father.  Plenty of time to be together, play, talk, wait and bond.  Who said the game is too slow?

The gift that keeps on giving is always on sale for 100% off because it is free.

But in our workaday world where stressors mount hour-by-hour, we increasingly see relationship solutions as being mobile, digital and materialistic because we are so jammed on time.  Time is money and we often wind up spending it on the wrong things.

The father I saw dining with his two daughters in a Chinese restaurant in Scottsdale, AZ a year ago put on a clinic for how not to parent.

He was on his Blackberry for most of the dinner.  His young children chatted with each other while he was distracted – not their dad.

As the holidays come upon us, could this be the year that we realize that an hour spent visiting a person in an assisted living facility is a gift all by itself – one that will always be a hit.

That the toy you give a child almost doesn’t matter, but the time spent together does.

Splurging on presents for your spouses or partners is nice but non-distracted “face time” is the wrapping that makes it perfect.

Rick Warren says we must prove that our relationships are important by investing time in them:

“Words alone are worthless. My children, our love should not be just words and talk; it must be true love, which shows itself in action. Relationships take time and effort, and the best way to spell love is “T-I-M-E.”

We can give this present this year!

Kansas City Chiefs player Jovan Belcher killed his girlfriend and himself last week leaving their infant daughter without parents and his teammates devastated.

There are plenty of issues that have come to the fore:  the effect of head injuries, domestic violence and suppressing problems that need outside help.

But the thing that tugged at my heart was seeing fellow teammates question whether they had done enough to be there for their troubled friend.

Out of bad comes good, but it will not replace the two victims nor will it undo the hurt that their daughter will have to deal with.

Sometimes the good is separate and apart.

Like learning the value and necessity of being able to communicate positively at all times.

God knows we have more communications tools today than ever in the history of civilization.

My best friend used to send me a note each and every (and I do mean every) time we would meet for lunch or dinner.  Just a quickie to say thanks and share something positive.

I still have every one of his notes.

People want to know someone is listening to them.

That they care.

Now we can use Twitter and Facebook to say nice things to one another and let others know we are more than just quick “Facebook friends”.

Or email and text to say something quickly and positively.

Perfection is not attainable in this life.

Being human is quite enough as long as we all feel someone cares.

Take a chance and encourage a friend or family member.

Tell the world about a fellow worker’s accomplishments.

Get the accent off “me” and return it to where it belongs – “you”.

“The most basic of all human needs is the need to understand and be understood. The best way to understand people is to listen to them.”  — Ralph Nichols

The great motivational speaker Zig Ziglar died last week at the age of 86.

His messages were powerful as he spoke to audiences worldwide – in his heyday speaking 150 times a year and even into his 70’s preaching the gospel of self-help 50 times per year.  He earned $50,000 a speech!

Messages like:  “If you aim at nothing, you will hit it every time” and “There are no traffic jams on the extra mile”.

At the core of Ziglar’s approach to motivation is this secret to empower others:

“Our whole philosophy’s built around the concept that you can have everything in life you want if you will just help enough other people get what they want”.

But we live in a self-absorbed world where people increasingly and outwardly seek that which they want at the exclusion of others.

American politics is about no compromise.

Often employers adopt the take it or leave it attitude which has more than paved over their “my way or the highway” approach.

Empowering those close to us to achieve their goals, too.

Our fellow workers to be better because we are part of their lives.

Believing in our children enough to be their silent partner on the road to success and happiness.

It’s about relishing in the role of helping others get what they want as a ticket to getting what we want.

Ziglar said empowering others “works in your personal life, your physical life.  It works in corporate America.  It works in government.  It works everywhere”.

And some hints of how to begin empowering others as well as ourselves were revealed in Ziglar’s New York Times obituary:

Be grateful.

Believe.

Try.

Few things are more powerful than friendships, but when we feel betrayed by a friend, there is great hurt and the feeling of loss.

Also, self-doubt. 

After all, we often wind up blaming ourselves rightly or wrongly.

The closer we are with others, the more vulnerable we become.

So I have a 4 step road to recovery that I would like to share with you.  This applies to anyone of any age and is particularly useful with children who are devastated when they feel betrayal for the first time.

1. First and fast determine if the perceived betrayal is a misunderstanding.  Once emotions take over it is harder to resolve the misunderstandings we all have in life.
2. Accept apologies.  Not harboring anger is what friends really do.  Forgiveness does not always mean forgetting.
3. If they feel as badly as you do, consider reaching out to see things from their perspective.
4. Ask yourself if you want to remain friends with the person who betrayed you.  All healing is painful but it can also be beneficial.  Sometimes moving on is the best option.

Adversity can actually strength friendships as George Washington pointed out: 

“True friendship is a plant of slow growth, and must undergo and withstand the shocks of adversity before it is entitled to the appellation.”

We earn the right to be a friend.

I love this definition of a true friend:

“Your friend is the man (person) who knows all about you, and still likes you.” (Elbert Hubbard)

Thanks for sharing these daily thoughts with people you care about and please feel free to keep the conversation going by making a comment below.

I’m bad at this and yet it is important – living in the now is the only place to be.

It makes sense.

There have been many outstanding books to extol its virtues.  Eckhart Tolle’s “The Power of Now” comes to mind.

Yet the very thing that makes us succeed – the ability to focus on the future — is not an adequate formula for personal happiness.

What is a person to do?

Not look ahead?

Just being aware of the demands of life and career is a good first step.  But I have found these thoughts helpful:

1. Appreciate the moments of today.  Do not postpone joy.
2. Forget about past hurts and move on – let go, put it to rest and feel the exhilaration that automatically places you in the present.
3. Stop worrying.  99% of that which we worry about never happens and the 1% that does occurs rarely the way we feared it.  Needless worry relegates us to the past and not the moment.
4. Start each day in the now – commit to it.  It gets harder to do as the day goes on and life happens but concentrating on today and not tomorrow’s worries will be a good beginning.
5. Give your undivided attention to someone – perhaps a friend, parent, partner or a child without the focus on you.  It’s hard in a world of digital devices and social networks, but concentrating on others is an automatic homerun for living in the present.

As I said, living in the present is not easy for me.

When all else fails I take my inspiration from this thought:

“Children have neither a past nor a future.  Thus they enjoy the present – which seldom happens to us”.  (Jean De La Bruyere).

Sir William Osler said, “Without faith a man can do nothing, with it all things are possible”.

But we are human and we have ups and downs.

Times when we are at peace with our ability to believe in ourselves, in others or how we choose to live our lives.

Sometimes unexpected events hijack our faith.

An illness, the loss of a job or the death of a loved one.  A friendship broken, angry words spoken or disruption that comes from one of life’s many hurts.

When faith wanes, channel a higher power.

Something or someone larger than life so that you gain the ability to let go of what ails you at the moment.

Did you know that Mother Teresa spent a lifetime dealing with doubts as she tended to the less fortunate people of India?  Mother Teresa said, “I have no faith – I dare not utter the words and thoughts that crowd in my heart and make me suffer untold agony”.

Mother Teresa wasn’t being scandalous.  She was being human.

So let me share with you what bolsters me when I struggle to maintain a strong belief in myself or others.

It comes from Scott Peck:

“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”.

Look up.

Thank you so much for sharing these daily messages with people who matter to you. 

The holidays can be such a wonderful time of the year, but they can also be a time of great loss and disappointment.

Meanwhile life goes on and we try to rally ourselves when we’ve got an unexpected case of the blues.

I’ll tell you how many people nip it in the bud.

They get busy focusing on someone other than themselves.

For example, another individual who needs a helping hand.

A person in need of a friendly ear.

Or to those who have bigger problems than we have.

One of my fellow Dale Carnegie instructors used to distribute 3×5 cards to his classes on the first day.

He would ask his students to write down and number the three biggest problems in their lives but without identifying their name on the card.

The instructor would then ask the class to pass the cards to the center aisle, collect them, shuffle the pile and randomly redistribute them to their “new” owners.

He would ask, “How many people by a show of hands would like to have their own card (with their own problems) back again?”

Never did even one person prefer their “new” problems to the ones they have.

I adopted this technique in my speaking but also in my life and the results are the same.

So, it could always be worse and if you want to make things better right now, a bit of gratitude along with the willingness to get the focus off your problems and onto helping someone else is the solution.

I love to write these daily messages to you.  Would you do me a favor and share with those who may also appreciate them?  Thank you!

Their bosses think it is money, but employees want – no, crave – appreciation.

And appreciation costs nothing to their employers.

Taraci Motivation compiled a list that compared what employees said they really wanted and what their employers thought they wanted.

For instance,

1. Employees ranked appreciation as what they say they wanted most from an employer, but their bosses thought they would rank it 8 out of ten.
2. Employers thought good wages would be what their workers said came first, but employees say it was only fifth on their list.
3. It gets worse – feeling “in” on things was ranked second by employees but employers thought their employees would rank it dead last – at tenth.

This says two things.

How out of touch employers and employees are with each other’s wants and needs which is actually alarming if you think about it.

And secondly, but more important, the awesome power of appreciation as an affordable motivator that never goes out of style.

Appreciation as the first thing that employees want is nothing new –similar studies confirmed it as long as two decades ago.

So if you want to motivate an employee – or for that matter, anyone in your life – express appreciation in person, in writing or in deed.

Voltaire said,

“Appreciation is a wonderful thing.  It makes what is excellent in others belong to us as well”.

Or as someone once said,  “If you don’t show appreciation to those who deserve it, they’ll learn to stop doing the things you appreciate”.

If you want to guarantee the best Thanksgiving holiday you have ever had, here is a surefire way.

Often the football games, children, families catching up understandably affect the spirit of a holiday whose reason for being is the expression of gratitude.

So, try this as you sit down and dig into the turkey and all the goodies.

You be the one to get everyone’s attention just before the meal begins and say something like this to the person(s) who prepared the meal looking them directly in the eye.

“I want to express to you how much we appreciate the time and love that you put into this meal.  All of us at this table are thankful that you made all of this happen so that we might be together today.”

There are two key elements.

You taking the lead.

And you expressing gratitude for the group.

Don’t be surprised to see teary eyes and a wonderful human relations appetizer for dinner.

It’s also a great teaching lesson to children gathered at the table.

Try it and report back in comments.

And have a very Happy Thanksgiving.

Most of us know how to feel and how to think.

The problem is we think when we need to feel and we become emotional when we need to think.

Decision making is what steers our lives and yet it is common for people to make decisions based on emotion instead of fact.

An example is when we choose relationships because of the way we feel about another person instead of also factoring in whether the object of our affection is also right for us.

In the alternative, we can also make decisions about people sans emotion – and that can lead to trouble.

The person who quits the job she loves because she hates her boss is thinking with her heart and not her head.

One who raises a family based solely on right and wrong will find that love must also be communicated from the heart.

When I was getting divorced a counselor said to me, for a person who made a lot of good decisions in my life, I made bad ones when I made decisions based only on my heart and not my head.

François de la Rochefoucauld
:

“The heart is forever making the head its fool”.

We’ve all heard that phrase a lot and perhaps it has applied to us at various times in our lives.

How is it possible that we can become our own worst enemy?

What’s wrong with becoming our own best advocate?

As I write this I am returning from Philadelphia where a good friend of mine is battling cancer. He has not only mastered the art of being his own best advocate but has advocated for others every day of his life.

Only speaking in positive terms about himself and his potential.

Not allowing negative thoughts or words to come out of his mouth or occupy his mind.

I witnessed it as he built a Dale Carnegie franchise through exemplary human relations. 

I saw him set goals for himself that did not allow a negative thought.  In other words, my friend would not waste his time contemplating failure – just stoking his own fires until he achieved success.

In fighting his illness, he will not talk of the possibility he may die and perhaps that’s why he has lived with cancer for 10 years and counting.

We cannot control what other people say or do to us. 

But we can control what we say or do to ourselves.

So, for one day only, try to be your own best advocate – all day, all night, at work, at home.  See how it feels.

Our worst enemy is accepting the negative thinking of others, not the positive potential that can reside in all of us.

Don’t be a victim of your own mind.

In the words of Roderick Thorp:

“We have to learn to be our own best friends because we fall too easily into the trap of being our own worst enemies.”

Have you ever heard someone say, “shame on you”?

That is perhaps the worst thing anyone could say to another human being.  And yet, it is uttered even to children routinely all the time.

Dr. Marilyn J. Sorensen says “Unlike guilt – which is the feeling of doing something wrong, shame is the fear of being something wrong.”

Shame is used to control others and if you’ve been on the receiving end of someone who is trying to shame you then you also know they are really trying to control you.

Chip away at our self-confidence.

Make us fearful.

There are four ways to successfully deal with shame:

1. Accept your faults only as long as you can name an equal number of virtues.
2. Avoid becoming co-dependent to another person.  Co-dependent people earn their name because they rely on others to validate that they are good.
3. No one gets your permission to act in a verbally abusive way.  Shut it down immediately.  Separate from the person abusing you.
4. Love of self is the antidote for shame.

In the radio industry, I know of many good and dedicated employees who have been laid off due to recent corporate cutbacks and they are not even allowed to gather their belongings and say goodbye.

This is true of radio personalities who have spent decades entertaining the station’s audience and with whom their name is synonymous with the station’s call letters.

They leave with only a box of belongings in their hands often gathered by someone else.

Often, these victims of poor management develop temporary and, yes, even a permanent loss of confidence as they are literally shamed out the door.

My advice to them is always the same:

“Shame kills self esteem.  Love of self kills shame”. 

28-year old PGA pro golfer Charlie Beljan had a meltdown at the Children’s Miracle Network Classic in Lake Buena Vista, FL last Friday.

His throat tightened and his heart went into rapid heartbeat.  But he eventually played on for 5 hours carding a 64, the second lowest score of his rookie season.

Beljan then fell to the ground fearing a possible heart attack and was taken to the hospital where he had tests and spent the night hooked up to machines and still in his golf clothes.

When the tests came in, Beljan found out he suffered a panic attack and was released Saturday to continue playing in the event.   As he returned to the course, Beljan was crying on the practice range fearing that he would have another panic attack.

He had been under a lot of personal pressure.  Beljan had to place in the top ten not to forfeit his eligibility to remain on tour.  He married in the beginning of the year and his wife gave birth to their first child in September.  This was not his first panic attack.  He passed out on an airplane forcing an emergency landing with what turned out to be a panic attack a month before his son was born. 

Remarkably, Beljan won the golf tournament panic attack and all.

Made $846,000.

And qualified to play next season on the pro tour.

In the end the way Charlie Beljan won the battle with anxiety – at least long enough to win the event – was to understand that he had to live one day at a time.

Golf is a game that is played best when it is played one hole at a time.

For those of us facing anxiety and stress in our lives, the winning formula is living one day at a time and letting go of the stressors that plague us.

It’s a battle that often ends up making us feel like champions when we rise to the occasion.

As Milan Kundera says,

“The source of anxiety lies in the future.  If you can keep the future out of mind, you can forget your worries.”

When we’re disappointed, we often get mad at ourselves or angry at others.

This hurts us emotionally and actually physically weakens our immune system which is why when we’ve experience a great letdown we get often then get sick.

Here are some ways of dealing with disappointment in a positive way that is kinder to ourselves and others:

1. Remember that no one gets what they want all the time.  It’s like a batting average.  If you bat .300 you’re still going to out 70% of the time.  Adjust expectations to fit reality.
2. Replace anger with gratitude.  Gratitude is like aspirin.  It cures many things. Taking out anger on others often forces them to rebel.
3. When you disappoint, a simple heartfelt apology is very effective.  When you’ve disappointed yourself, forgive yourself and move on.
4. Beware of denial.  When we deny our disappointment, it will get worse and those around us will keep their distance.
5. Disappointment is temporary.  It can have a positive effect by making us appreciate 100 times over when things meet our expectations.

Alexander Pope said, “Blessed is he who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed.”

Keep expectations low but keep motivation high.

At the most stressful time of the year, Thanksgiving occurs. 

It’s the busiest air travel holiday and millions of people return to family gatherings in the hope that a Norman Rockwell holiday will result.

I know people who spend months trying to come up with “excuses” to avoid a family disaster at Thanksgiving.

Others accept the invitation but make themselves miserable up to and including turkey day.

Next week, I will share with you the one thing that will guarantee gratitude and love even in the toughest situations.  It works like a charm.

But one week out, it is helpful to remember that great expectations are not always possible with dysfunctional families, petty jealousies, marital problems, missing children spending the holiday with the other parent, sibling rivalries and even darker issues that sometimes affect families.

Yet gratitude is always possible once we grieve for the family we do not have.

I think this advice from Dr. Ana Nogales is very positive and uplifting at holiday time:

“After acknowledging what may be missing in our family relationships, each of us can then focus on the positive. Perhaps you had a good relationship with one of your relatives in the past, and you are working things out so that things may get better in the future. Maybe there is one family member with whom you have a special connection, with whom you feel free to be yourself. Or perhaps you have created a “family” with trusted and beloved friends, a group you feel more “related to” than the family into which you were born”.

Focus on being thankful to avoid unpleasantness. 

Feel free to forward this email and share with your friends.

I had a friend who lost his son at 18 due to suicide.

Yesterday I met a woman whose boyfriend died two years ago from lung cancer while she continues to mourn.

You don’t have to lose a loved one in the prime of their years to feel genuine loss.  My mother passed away at 96 and I miss her every day. 

There are many stages of grief.

I once asked a well-known counselor how long grief should last and he replied, as long as it lasts.

How long is that?

Whenever the grieving is complete as long as you can continue to function in your everyday life.  If not, it’s time to seek counseling to better cope.

The way to add meaning to the loss of someone dear to you is to isolate the one characteristic that he or she had that you most admired.

Then devote your life attempting to make that trait a part of you.

In that way, the deceased lives on through you.

And in some small way, their death is a just a bit easier to accept.

Gandhi said it eloquently:

“There are no goodbyes for us. Wherever you are, you will always be in my heart”.

We all know control freaks.

They are at work, in our families and, yes, even staring back at us in the mirror.

Being around controlling people tends to rub off on us even if we are inclined not to be all that controlling.

This topic fascinates me in our fast moving competitive world where there is more self-absorption than ever before in a 24/7 race to have it our own way.

Yet the answer to living with controlling people is not to become like them.

It’s a disease that they’ve inherited, acquired or otherwise cobbled together to stay competitive.

Elizabeth Brenner in Winning by Letting Go offered these keys to ridding ourselves of the control that kills our spirit and hurts our relationships:

1. Accept things as they really are.  Let go of our wishes, fantasies and fears and deal with what can be changed.
2. Get to know yourself better.  You cannot give away what you do not have.
3. “Any lingering attachments to having things our way hook us back into barter and control”. 

Therefore the irony in life is that we gain control by giving up control.

No control freak is really in control – they just make other people and themselves miserable.

When you’ve had it up to here with control freaks or even your controlling tendencies, try surrendering by giving up control.

And feel the freedom and power that comes with.