True love is when two people are each other’s best listener.

Tuned in, responsive.

Eager to practice the awesome power of listening to show that they deeply care.

Marriage counselors will tell you that when they conduct counseling sessions with two warring partners one or both parties scream out to be heard.  The two often speaking past each other without even noticing.

A basic human need and one not often recognized for its importance before it is too late is the need to be heard.

Anyone can do it, but it takes some practice.

Focus on the person.

Receive the message.

Respond (don’t react).

No relationship has ever been strong without the ability to listen to each other.

The simple act of listening is true love.

“The first duty of love is to listen” – Anonymous quote

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Some people just like to get under your skin.

It’s a dysfunctional way to interact with others and it can leave the recipient on an emotional roller coaster.

We reprogram our phones, digital devices and computers.  Now we can reprogram that hot button that others push to make us angry.

I know a psychologist who advised a separated couple not to talk to each other very often because of an acrimonious divorce.  So when one ex called the other it would end in a shouting match.  His prescription:  put the phone down, don’t slam it down and walk away.  Send a message that you are not reacting, but responding and the response is “we’re not going to have destructive and upsetting conversations”.  No anger – just a phone with nobody there.

See yourself in a tee-shirt that has a big “PUSH” button on the front (big and red like the Staples “Easy” button).

Whenever anyone makes you feel threatened by the conversation – either directly or more subtly – picture that “PUSH” button and don’t let them push it.

This can be very empowering because sometimes people don’t observe healthy boundaries and you no longer have to let them impose their drama on you.

“No is a complete sentence” – Ann Lamott

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When people let us down, it is disappointing.

And there are no shortages of disappointments to go around. 

A cancelled appointment, a missed dinner date, a worker who fails to live up to a promise, a friend who blows you off and thinks nothing of it. 

That’s why to overcome disappointment caused by others that can sometimes be hurtful, there is a 3-step approach that is worth pursing. 

1. Ask yourself, if the person who is disappointing you is as upset by it as you are.  If not, start getting over it immediately.
2. If a pattern of disappointment becomes evident, invest more of your emotional time in people who do not disappoint.
3. Protect boundaries that prevent others from upsetting your world whether it is intentional or circumstantial.

If you are the person disappointing yourself, identify this as destructive behavior and start treating yourself as the fine person you are.

There is power in being able to do and be more than others expect from you.  It feels great and makes those around you feel great. 

At the same time, ratchet down impossible expectations from those around you.

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

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Three teenage girls who sat next to me at a recent Flyers hockey game arrived late.

One asked me if had they missed the “tribute”. 

They were speaking of a classmate of theirs who developed bone cancer and had to give up athletics, a normal life and his hair battling the disease.

The Flyers did a between period tribute to this young man who was shown on arena vision beaming from ear to ear and appeared to be the healthiest person in the arena.  The girls were thrilled.  We were all inspired.

To them, their peer represented inspiration.  Hope.  The ability to overcome adversity and prevail in the end.

Suffering is a necessary part of life.  It almost always changes the individual and those around them.  Many of life’s suffering are not fatal but we often think they are. 

Suffering can be transformational as this young boy with cancer proves.  I’m sure you can name an inspirational hero who has overcome the odds.

But everyday suffering from jobs we’re not happy with, relationships that seem bogged down or financial problems that feel insurmountable can be handled the same way.

Courage.

A “treatment plan”.

Determination to overcome the adversity that causes the suffering. 

No need to wait for illness to inspire us when there are so many other challenges that can be met with the same prescription.

Never, never give up hope.

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I have a theory why the world seems to be getting ruder.

We’ve been digitally connected now for well over a decade and it’s a lot easier to fire off a text or an email response without seeing or hearing the other person’s reaction. 

And without thinking.

In essence, we’ve become immune to observing the reactions of others.

And we’re all on digital overload.

We all have some degree of attention deficit and before you say not you, do you own a TiVo or a DVR?  Increasingly we want what we want when we want it on demand.

I’m convinced that people – even rude ones – have a great need to be heard.

And this we can do.

Listen – respond. 

And don’t battle rudeness with rudeness.

Here are my rules:

1. Fight rude people with attention – listen, observe the message along with the rudeness.
2. Show them how to do it right – respond with courtesy and respect and deliver the message you have in mind.  They should never get you off message.
3. Draw a boundary between this type of rudeness and the kind that makes you feel badly about yourself at which point – cut them loose.

You might be saying, I don’t care about rude people, but they get in our space and adversely affect our daily lives at work, at home and in our peer groups.

Best yet, even when you use the three rules to no avail, somehow you feel better, more in control.

“Rudeness is the weak man’s imitation of strength” – Edmund Burke

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One of the characteristics of the 80 million members of Generation Y is that they are dreamers.  They exist to pursue their dreams whether it be at work, at home or in a civic way.

This is good.  It’s inspirational. 

When we’re kids we think anything is possible.  Adults call it being altruistic and somehow time, work and experience dampens that youthful gift most of us didn’t even know we had.

Then we get older and learn to be more mature, more responsible – in essence, more like an adult.

This is also good.

But both youthful dreaming and adult responsibility together is even better.

So, it’s up to us to see what we need to add to the mix to achieve that all-important 50/50 ratio.

Usually, it is being more childlike. 

We need more wonder, more discovery, more fun which comes by allowing ourselves to be “young”.   And if you think this actual youth has an advantage, that would be wrong.  The advantage goes to those with youthful behavior no matter what their age.

You’re saying, could there be anyone on this earth who is half childlike and half mature adult?

The Dali Lama – revered for both characteristics whose enviable comportment makes us believe that it may be possible to be half kid and half adult.

Life is too short to let Mr. Burns ruin our happiness at work.

Or to outsource our childlike wonder to a world that can sap our zest for living.

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Relax.  Don’t double down and amp up the effort.

Tony Schwartz, author of Be Excellent At Anything and author of a recent article in the Sunday New York Times warns us that we may not want to believe it but research shows naps and vacations lead to more and better output.  

It’s called strategic renewal and you’re going to be hearing more about it because, face it, we’re all too stressed!

Short afternoon naps.  Daytime workouts.  More sleep.  More time away from the office.  More vacations (Americans left an average of 9.2 vacation days unused in 2012).

Who does Schwartz think we work for – Google?

But jobs performance, more productivity and improved health are the solid evidence that backs up his claim.

More, bigger and faster is out. 

And believe it or not 50% of us plan to work on vacation, a third of us eat lunch at our desk while we continue to work and employers push this unsustainable work ethic that actually costs American companies some $63 billion a year according to a recent Harvard study.

• When a Stanford researcher got male basketball players to sleep 10 hours a night, free-throw and three point performance increased by 9%.
• When night shift air traffic controllers were asked to take a 40-minute nap mid-shift, their performance was better on tests that measured vigilance and reaction time.
• 60-90 minute naps actually improved memory.

Our bodies speak.  They tell us too much Starbucks.  Too much stress.  Too much digital.  And yet we don’t listen.

Schwartz says it best:

“When we’re renewing, we’re truly renewing, so when we’re working, we can really work”.

I’ve got to work on this one, how about you?

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The world’s top golfer, Rory McIlroy abruptly walked off the course during the recent Honda Classic.

He had enough of the bad round he was playing after only nine holes.  Maybe it was the new clubs.  Maybe the pressure of being 23 and number one at the same time.

Off he went, ignoring the long held code of golf that states a player finishes his or her round unless they have a persuasive reason for withdrawing.  And even then they must report it to the commissioner.

Golf isn’t the only place where a bruised ego gets in the way.

It happens to us – our families, at work.  Sometimes we have to deal with bruised egos of others and sometimes it’s our own.

Some players – arguably the majority in any given tournament – are playing for nothing.  They qualified to continue on but they can’t possibly win.

They are just playing for pride and to set a good example for others.

And therein lies the answer to how to cure a bruised ego.

Set it aside.

Get yourself under control.

Persevere for pride and to set a good example for others.

I always remind my bruised ego that knowing how to lose is practice for knowing how to win.

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My best friend was fond of saying, “Be the fine person you are”.

What a great thing to say to someone.

One line fits all because all of us need to be reminded that although we are fallible, we are also good people.  Little else needs to be said. 

Here are ways to make someone’s day if not life, by saying; “Be the fine person you are”:           

• Forget the sermons, tell it to a child or teenager.
• Instead of “I’m sorry” when someone is sharing their tough times, pick them up and inspire them with these 6 words.
• Adapt it for work as a sincere form of encouragement:  “Be the fine worker you are”.  If you back it up with an example of why they are a fine worker, it is even more powerful.

And don’t forget the best use of “Be the fine person you are”. 

Tell it to yourself several times a day.

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Recent news reports highlighted that Generation Y, the next generation and the digital generation was proclaimed the most stressed generation.

No wonder anxiety attacks (or panic attacks) are on the rise.

It’s complicated and doctors and psychologists deal with undue anxiety in their patients all the time.

But in addition to medical remedies and changes in behavior, there is another way to look at anxiety that might be helpful.

Anxiety attacks happen when people care too much.

When they want to be perfect. 

Or want to please at home, in relationships or on the job.

Anxiety plagues people who care too much – a punishment for being too good that they don’t deserve.

So, just attempting to see anxiety in a different light can shed new light on what can be so debilitating to people of all generations.

If you didn’t care, you wouldn’t put yourself through the suffering that afflicts the anxious.  

So go ahead – care too much – starting with you.

“If you want to conquer the anxiety of life, live in the moment, live in the breath” – Amit Ray

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Friendship may have been downgraded in the digital age what with “friending” people on Facebook and connecting to others using social media. 

There is nothing wrong with that, but the term friend should be reserved for someone who is there for you as you are for them.

A true two-way street.

A win-win between two people.

True friends are people who know when they are needed by others who bring joy and happiness into the lives of the people they care about most.  There is no possession on this earth – no car, no house, no bank account – more valuable than a true friend.

As a recent episode of the HBO Original Series “Girls” was playing out with the credits, “Open The Door” written and performed by Judy Collins was featured.

The words that hit home were:

“I’d like to be as good a friend to you as you are to me.”

When two people feel this way, they are true friends.

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Athletes have them – a time when they can’t seem to get a hit, score a goal or contribute positively to their team no matter what they do.

Actors have them – they might have been all the rage once and now they can’t seem to get a good part.

Singers can be one hit wonders or they can come back again and again and stoke their careers even over the span of different generations.


We all have dry spells.

When a hockey player can’t seem to score a goal through skill or luck, it is usually because they are getting so concerned that they grip their stick too tightly.  The same is true in others sports where trying too hard does not reap results.

Trying too hard to overcome adversity extends the dry spells in life that frustrate and confound us.

So, a few remedies:

• Let go and lift the burden (get the monkey off your back)
   
• Focus on doing what you do well without concern for results (in other words, focus on playing your game the best you can) with no distractions.
   
• Lower expectations with the knowledge that dry spells eventually pass but they pass sooner when we lift the burden of bearing down too much.

“My motto was always to keep swinging.  Whether I was in a slump or feeling badly or having trouble off the field, the only thing to do was keep swinging” – Hank Aaron

When Yahoo! CEO Marissa Mayer recently ordered employees back to their offices and announced her intention to crackdown on working from home, it was the shot fired ‘round the world.

Why?

Because so many people telecommute and do it so well.  But even ex-employees of Yahoo! came out to defend Mayer who took only two weeks off for her recent maternity leave.

Mayer says you have to physically go to work to collaborate better while telecommuters insist that with all the digital tools that exist, they can communicate just fine from home and save on commuting costs and day care to boot.

Who is right?

When I put the question to Morley Winograd, author of Millennial Momentum about the emerging Generation Y he put it in perspective: 

“The solution that she should be shooting for, but maybe can’t afford, is to make the workplace such a great place to be that people show up on their own rather than telecommuting. That’s what Google has done with its Googleplex campus that they are about to spend millions more to make even more attractive. For Google the place is so great that they had to adopt a rule for first year workers LIMITING the time they spend on campus.” 

So as usual, we tend get lost in the din of the discussion.

To change people’s behavior, give them the burning desire to do that which you want them to do.

And that advice applies to all of us in our personal and business lives as well.

Light their fire rather than burn down the house.

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Never.  Always forgive.

When not to forget.

Always.

Forgiving doesn’t mean forgetting and some people may be dysfunctionally liberated by your forgiveness and attempt to continue the hurt.

Forgive anyway.

But don’t forget.

And don’t allow the person you are forgiving to push your boundaries.

The main benefit to forgiving others is not for them.  It’s for us.  Forgiving is a freeing thing. 

Think about the animosity and vitriol that engulfs families, friends and associates because we are more interested in continuing to hurt ourselves than to let it go.

We forgive former presidents (Nixon and Clinton).

We forgive athletes (Tiger Woods and soon, Lance Armstrong).

We forgive drug addicts, entertainers and other people in the public space but don’t know personally.  Forgiveness is a human trait.

So forgive freely.  It’s a freeing thing that when healthy boundaries are enforced it allows us to get back to living with positive energy.

“To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you” –

Lewis B. Smedes

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A recent USA Today story researched the happiest states in the union based on a study from mathematicians at the University of Vermont. 

They used Twitter real time posts to gauge how people were feeling looking for words like “wine” and “food” to determine that Napa, CA is the happiest city in the country.  And Beaumont, TX was dead last of 373 cities because of a lot of swearing and, as the article points out, “a shortage of ‘awesome’ and ‘amazing’”.

Hawaii is the happiest state according to this Twitter word analysis and Louisiana the last due to “an abundant use of profanity”.  Researchers did not read the tweets for context. 

Of course, you don’t need a research study to tell you unhappy people live everywhere and so do happy ones. 

A more important study shows that people who have less – like the citizens of the Fiji Islands – are happier than the more stressed and wealthy residents of major cities.

So, how can anyone anywhere increase their happiness by 50% now – today? 

1. Find at least one thing to be grateful for every hour.
    
2. Don’t postpone or talk yourself out of anything joyful that happens for any reason large or, more importantly, small.
    
3. At least once a day, make it about someone else not about us.
    
4. Be mindful of trying to live in the moment.  Experts say even trying and failing to live in the now makes us happier.

“Even if happiness forgets you a little bit, never completely forget about it” — Jacques Prévert

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Viktor Frankl in Man’s Search For Meaning writes about both the physical and mental challenges of surviving in a World War II concentration camp. 

It is a book about hope.

When Frankl told a friend that he would join him attempting to escape, he recalls an intense unpleasant feeling that came over him.

But something loomed larger for Frankl, a doctor and psychiatrist who was assigned to caring for the health of sick and dying at Auschwitz.

He decided not to attempt an escape.  He listened to his inner voice and feelings and the results were transformative.  To hear Frankl tell it:

“As soon as I told him with finality that I made up my mind to stay with my patients, the unhappy feeling left me.  I did not know what the following days would bring, but I had gained an inward peace that I had never experienced before.”

The message is clear.

Making the decision to take fate into your own hands is more difficult than knowing the right thing to do.

Courage to decide.

The immediate serenity of inward peace once the decision is made.

This serves a template for the rest of us in our workaday world where too frequently we allow ourselves to be paralyzed by the fear of deciding even when we know what to do.

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Just recently, Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer issued an edict to her young workforce of Yahoos mandating that they cut out virtual work arrangements and start showing up in person.  

Mayer claims that the virtual arrangement is inefficient and that the work force needs to be more collaborative.

I asked Morley Winograd, author of Millennial Momentum and expert on Generation Y about whether the “collaborative” generation would respond well to Mayer’s ultimatum.

Winograd said that Yahoo should follow in the footsteps of rival Google which spent millions to expand what it calls the Googleplex campus.  In others words, Google is trying to make the workplace such a great place that people will want to show up rather than telecommute. 

Google is among only a handful of companies that understand the importance of motivating a changing work force.  Yahoo is probably under financial pressure from its lenders to cut costs and gain efficiencies, but to call their employees back to work is likely to fail.

To motivate others, we have to give them the burning desire to do that which we are asking.

Mandates no longer work. 

Threats to do it or else — as Yahoo is telling its workers — will backfire and their talent will migrate to more enlightened employers.

In fact, whether it’s work or home — with spouses, children or friends and family — making that which you are asking others to do more attractive is a virtual guarantee of cooperation.

“When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves”  — Viktor Frankl, Mans Search for Meaning

Or text message.

Or letter.

Go ahead and pound it out.  Get a load off your mind.  Tell them in no uncertain words.  Use vivid, strong and colorful language.  Give them a piece of your mind.  Don’t bother checking the spelling.

But before you hit send, save it to your outbox if it’s email, don’t hit send yet if it’s a text message and don’t mail the letter — not just yet.

Once you get it all out, here’s my secret. 

Don’t send it for 24 hours.

A day later I challenge you to review your strong message and I’ll bet you will do what I do — delete it or throw it in the trash. 

The real benefit to writing an angry letter or email is that you get your harsh feelings out to examine and consider.

The advantage to not sending it is that you don’t let those same feelings destroy relationships or further complicate them.

You can’t take it back after you hit send so hit save to save yourself from making a big mistake.

Speak when you are angry and you will make the best speech you will ever regret.

Marriages, families, employees and managers and almost every relationship could do better at effective communication.

Here are some things you might try because even accomplishing one of them can mean real improvement, happiness or career success:

• When receiving the message, practice repeating it back to the sender.
   
• If you’re the sender, use diplomacy and the best human relations skills you know to couch the way you say it.
   
• Do that which you agree you will do or else it shows disrespect to others.
   
• Be considerate by always keeping those with whom you communicate in the loop on latest developments.  With all the digital tools we have, there are no excuses for waiting for another person to ask you for an update.
   
• Present problems first as an opportunity — include some solutions.
   
• Consider the setting, time, location as part of when and how to communicate.
   
• For problems, agree on an action step and then immediately set a time to complete what you’ve promised or to schedule a follow-up conversation.
   
• Never put anything in an email that you can’t imagine yourself reading in a courtroom.
   
• Use email judicially for it is often misinterpreted.  Email works best when it sticks to the facts.
   
• Think things through before communicating — don’t be tempted by lightning fast technology in lieu of careful consideration.
   
• No one hates a smiling face when entering into two-way talk.
   
• There is no one winner in effective communication — everyone must truly benefit.
   
• Never try to persuade another person without hearing them out first.
   
• Always have an open mind.

What do you think?  

Try one today?

“Two monologues do not make a dialogue” — Jeff Daly

“I can’t” means I won’t.

Instead say, I will.

“I failed” means I gave up.

Better to say, I’ll keep trying and learn from my failures.

“I wish” means I’m likely fantasizing.

It’s more productive to think of a wish as a firm commitment to guarantee results.

“I tried” is often code for I’m now going to stop trying.

Look at trying not as a virtue, but a continuous way of life. 

“I have no confidence” is frequently a way to say, and I’m not getting any confidence, either.  

Increased confidence begins with “yes, I can” not harboring thoughts of “no, I can’t”.

The words we tell ourselves determine the way we think.

Change the words.

Change the way you think.