In the digital age friendships are being reduced to short texts, quick calls or social media’s dispassionate engagement and that’s not helpful.

Face time in person focused on the other person is the better goal.

Any person who makes focused time for you is worth keeping. 

A person who brags about how many friends they have doesn’t need at least one of them – you.   

A disagreement between the right people with the goal of resolving it is an opportunity for an even richer friendship.  A pearl is created from the irritation of sand. 

Friends who fail to stay in touch on a regular basis are not only busy but not available to be friends. 

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Create an atmosphere of approval and acceptance.

Everyone craves approval and acceptance.  It’s a wonder why we withhold it so much.

How would you like to be treated?

That what we are is good enough at the least and maybe even better than that.

The feeling that we are believed.

The person who has the capability of sincerelyoffering approval and acceptance to others, will gain their confidence in the most meaningful way.

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Give them support instead.

Who likes criticism? Who is more motivated after they hear what’s wrong with them and with their ideas?

I know what you’re thinking. What if they (or you) really want guidance?

Then give guidance – positive steps that support not criticize.

I’ll bet you whoever invented constructive criticism never wanted to hear it.

Because criticism is not constructive.

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That’s true not only of merchandise and services but ideas and concepts.

If you have a great idea for your team, spend much of your effort into getting them to buy it from you rather than have you sell it to them. 

If you have a daughter or son who could benefit from your wisdom, don’t push it, get them to buy it from you.

Buy-in is everything. 

The control that people spend so much time chasing after is nothing compared to allowing someone to willfully arrive at your way of thinking.

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When everything goes right, we expect it to continue.

When everything goes wrong, we know it will continue.

Ending failure thoughts that haunt us is as simple as saying no to the fear of failure.

It’s not about big egos or overwhelming confidence.

Failure thoughts can bring a super confident person down quickly.

It’s about betting on yourself.

You may in fact fail, screw up at the highest level, be a victim of bad luck or circumstances but you will absolutely and positively never trash yourself not even for a second.

Nothing that is worth a person’s time or energy is worth harboring fear-driven thoughts of not succeeding.

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There are more solutions than problems you can think of.

For every problem, there isn’t just one possible solution, but many.

The trick is to immediately start focusing on all the possiblesolutions and not reiterating the problem over and over in so many different words.

Knowing there are more solutions than problems we could have, gives confidence and reassurance that our big dilemma is not the problem itself but choosing which one of the many solutions will solve it.

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Take Eagles wide receiver Alshon Jeffery.

He literally dropped a perfect pass that would likely have completed a victorious comeback in a recent NFL playoff game against the New Orleans Saints.

He was so distraught, the team lifted him up reminding Jeffery that the Eagles would not have won the Super Bowl last year without him.

Still, how do you live with yourself when you let others down?

Let’s consult a West Chester second grader who wrote the prescription in a letter to him.

Take notes.

I love you!  (Don’t start hating on yourself) 

My whole family was rooting for you!  (Someone has your back)

Don’t give up on playing football,” she wrote. “Keep practicing. Don’t get mad easily, I know you can do it. We all know you are a good player.” (Learn from your mistake and don’t give up).

Alshon Jeffery was so impressed with this advice, he made a surprise visit to Abigail’s second grade class because in this case, Abigail had the wisdom to know what we should all do when for whatever reason we drop the ball letting ourselves and others down.

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Haters use love to get to people giving compliments one moment and then overreacting the next.

It seems the world is full of haters because we are so connected on digital devices and in real time.

The best way to handle a hater is not to be one.

Not even to get back at them when they do something hurtful.

Dislike the deed not the person. 

Forgive, but don’t forget.

Take control of the one narrative that matters most – the life you want to live.

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We’re not born with self-control.

If we’re lucky others show us by example or we develop it on our own.

Reminding yourself when you have resisted reacting instead of responding helps build and reinforce the confidence to keep inappropriate anger in its place.

Focus on what’s being done right.

Anger is appropriate when it expresses a feeling without hurt.

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It’s not what other people think that holds us back.

It’s how we look at ourselves.

But that person is not you.

What you are today is you.

More important than failing to become that which you are not is to never stop trying.

No one perfect lives on this earth.

Be the fine person you are.

Don’t look to anyone else to tell you that.

Look at yourself favorably and others will do the same.

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Chasing happiness is like trying to net a butterfly – better to let it come to you.

Even the worst day can be followed by the next better day. 

The more it hurts, the more it helps to be grateful (especially for little things).

Fear of something bad drags us down, but evidence proves our fears are ill-conceived 99% of the time – and the 1% doesn’t happen the way we feared it. 

You can catch another person’s bad mood or negativity with regular exposure to them – run.

Fulfillment translates into happiness – set a goal each day and accomplish it because the feeling of accomplishment soothes a lot of unhappy thoughts. 

Stress is a killer – of relationships, happiness, health – so practice letting go of trying to control what is out of control and you will finally be in control.

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The New York Times tech writer Farhad Manjoo turned to meditation.

Escaping the digital world with app blockers, heightened self-control or even going offline doesn’t work in a world driven by digital connectivity.

There’s meditation that Manjoo says actually helps him to not care as much about the commotion in the digital world and makes him nicer, refreshed and more focused.

There’s heeding to this important warning signal.

If you’re reaching for your phone, the conversation you’re in is not holding your interest.

If you are with a person you care about but you are constantly checking your phone, you don’t care about them as much as you think.

If you’re lost in the black hole of Instagram, Facebook, SnapChat or social media, you need to jump start a new life in real time.

The phone is not going away – it shapes what we see, hear, how we interact, our commerce, everything.

When losing your life to a mobile device, it is time to reexamine the life you are living.

That may be the best gift you’ve ever gotten from a smartphone.

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The thing about courage is that everyone has it.

No one can give it to you.

It comes from within and you didn’t get this far without it.

Knowing that helps but how to get a boost of extra courage when it is needed?

Banish failure thoughts.

Replay images in your mind’s eye of times when you rose to the occasion even against all odds.

Courage is your gift to get after you help another person to awaken theirs.

Just saying the word courage or repeating it silently in your subconscious activates your full life’s worth of courageous actions ready for the next challenge.

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Overthinking takes a good idea and makes it a weaker one.

Simplicity is better than overthinking.

When you’re not happy taking a good idea and making it succeed then you are overthinking.

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Calm is the answer to busy.

Busy doesn’t mean productive – it often spells bouts of increased anxiety topped off by a feeling that important things are still not getting done and another round of anxiety follows.

Calm is a word we don’t hear much these days.

Calm is also a key component to dealing with stress.

Nick Foles, the unlikely Super Bowl MVP last year for the Philadelphia Eagles tries to act as a calming force instilling confidence and security in his players.

Creating an atmosphere where admitting mistakes comes easy.

Doing the right thing is the ultimate decider of how to use valuable time.

To gain the quality of being calm, practice on others by showing them how you can calm down a situation and help instill confidence in them.

It’s true multitasking will make you feel busy and focusing too much on digital devices will make you feel overwhelmed and under pressure.  But simply cutting these things out will not work.

Develop calm in others and you will develop calm in yourself.

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Cut interruptions and turn an 8-hour day into a very productive 5-hour day.

This has been confirmed in a 3,000 person 8 country study including the U.S.

But 49% in the U.S. said they need to resort to overtime to do the work that helps them stay employed.

Work creep has moved into our lives.

Four-day work weeks have been shown to reduce stress and make us more efficient because we have to make better decisions on the use of our time.

But, if you’re not in a position to opt for a four-day workweek as the employees of Gray Advertising in New York offers (for 85% of their employees’ salary), then one move makes a big difference.

End constant contact through email as you’re working.

Anything that competes for your time must be managed or else work creep returns, anxiety builds and you become less effective in your work.

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Trying to be perfect causes anxiety.

The problem with perfection is that few are only perfectionists in one portion of their life.  In other words, it influences every aspect.

On the other hand, when you need a serious operation, you want the surgeon to be a perfectionist.

When dining at an expensive restaurant, you expect the chef to be a perfectionist.

And perfectionists know that even in recreational sports designed to help them relax, they can’t help wanting to be perfect.\

Perfection anxiety cannot be reduced by trying to be what you’re not.

But an awareness that you don’t have to be a perfectionist when doing everything, like your morning run, provides some control, some balance.

Caring enough to be the best is admirable and desired as mentioned above.

But view it as a skill – a gift – that can definitely be balanced with effort.

A successful boxer doesn’t have to punch every person they meet to prove they can do it nor does a perfectionist have to spend 100% of their life creating pressure that robs them of the happiness they’ve earned by killing themselves to be the best.

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It’s not so important to get rid of the butterflies as it is to get them to fly in formation.

If you’re not nervous, it’s not natural.

If you are, it’s a matter of getting that nervousness under control and working for you.

Butterflies means you care.

Anxiety from letting them get out of control means you are ignoring self-care.

Have the courage to be yourself and you will always keep your butterflies flying in formation.

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An acquaintance is a person who is someone we know, can relate to and who has a place in our lives.

Most of us have more acquaintances than friends.

An associate is a colleague in business or at work.

We usually don’t get to vote on who these associates are but we can often confuse them as friends – sometimes they want you to.

A friend is a person with whom we have a bond of mutual affection.

A friend never has to be reminded to stay in touch — it’s an inner clock that misses you.

Friends talk in terms of each other’s interests – it’s mutual not exclusive.

Friendship cannot be manufactured, it is born of positive synergies between two people – you either have it or don’t.

Friendship isn’t conducted on social media, it is the anthesis of social media measured in moments together not in likes, follows or time spent substituting technology for hearing a voice, seeing a face or being together in person.

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It’s helpful to think of the dreams and aspirations that may be stuck somewhere deep inside of you by thinking about this.

If you had one more year to live, what one thing would you regret if you didn’t do it.

It’s likely you’ll have many, many more years to dream and pursue goals.

But to get to the thing that you may not even be conscious of – that is waiting to be discovered – answer the question above and you will have it.

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