People don’t want to go first.

At a wedding, no one wants to be the first on the dance floor.  After someone else gets up, the other dancers follow.

At dinner, if the room is quiet, it tends to stay quiet unless and until a number of conversations raise the decibel level.

In the classroom, the majority of students wait for someone else to raise their hand first.

The thing is going first is good for you.  Following others trains us to wait, overthink, create needless fear.

Next time, seize the opportunity.  It’s a way to practice building confidence for when you really need it.

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No one really wants advice.  What they really want is someone to listen to them, hear them out with judging.

But we call it advice because we want to get the other person’s attention and no one can resist giving advice.

If we can allow the other person to express their feelings, we are becoming an active listener and that’s a person who is valued even more than the one that has all the answers.

Repeating.  Restating. Waiting for the other person’s response.

The best gift you can give is listening to what that person has to say.

No judging.  No problem solving.

They want your ear and they want you to hear.

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Fred Rogers (Mister Rogers) defined three basic things as most important for children in life that also very much apply to adults.

1. Helping people feel good about themselves
2. The ability to get along with others
3. And appreciate the world around us

Love who you are and how unique you may be.

Learning to play well with others is a goal rarely pursued by adults although it is just as important.

Appreciating the world around us is difficult when that world’s focus is a smartphone.

Looking for happiness and fulfillment is hard to do without being skilled at mastering Mister Rogers’ three most important things in life.

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Who says we only have one life to live?

The divorcee married the third time – happily– isn’t believing it.

The fired executive left unemployed and without hope doesn’t believe it when they get a better job for more money and more satisfaction.

Friends who reconnect after not valuing each other become friends for life.

When lives are without purpose and meaningless, hit restart.

But here’s the thing.

Living your new life by burying yourself in the past will not yield better results.

The question is:  are you ready to move forward from today on without litigating the hurts and travails of the past.

If so, you just hit “restart”.

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We’re just too hard on ourselves.

No one wins all the time.

It’s not how many times you succeed, it’s still trying when the right moment comes along that matters.

Fear of failure is the worst fate of all because no one can give it to you unless you believe it.

Even failures are rehearsals for future success.

Would you tie your own hands behind your back knowingly and willingly?

That’s exactly what we do when we constantly fear failing.

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I can.

I’ve done it before, I can do it again.

I’ll never stop trying.

What doesn’t kill me will only make me stronger if I never give up.

Hope.

Trust in self.

Resilience.

When facing a crisis, it helps to repeat words like these that will foster a good outcome.

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If you’ve ever played softball, baseball or other sports, we can’t wait to get in there and take a swing at the ball, can we?

Even if we strike out three times in a row, we’re anxious to jump back in and try again.

This is not how most people live life.

We give up too easily, come up with reasons why we’ve done our best, shy away from trying again after a certain point.

We just accept a swing and a miss.

To change that and harness the power of persistence, think of everything you do like a baseball game.

In baseball, if you drop the ball, you actually want the next batter to hit it to you againso you can make amends. No licking wounds, no excuses.

That’s how to live life and increase the chance of winning because there is always the next opportunity to succeed.

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I was honored to work as an instructor for Wynn Etter, a Dale Carnegie sponsor in Cherry Hill, NJ.

Wynn was a force to be reckoned with – a ball of enthusiasm and positivity.  A man who could lift your spirits within the first two sentences out of his mouth.

He often could sense when I had doubts and he would say, “you can do it, tiger”.

Me a tiger?  I guess so if this force of nature thinks so.

Wynn came down with cancer later in life.

All through his treatment which went on for many years, Wynn lived an exemplary life of a person who had to deal with adversity while remaining positive.

How?

He always made it about you.

I would say “How are you feeling Wynn?”

“Great, tell me about your book, Jerry” and he’d be off and running to avoid sulking, sorrow and sympathy.

He lived for years, joined a gym for the first time when he was 65 and taught me by his example that helping others lift their spirits had the simultaneous effect of lifting his.

Wynn died a few years back but as you can read today, he’s very much alive in me.

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Not money – money is nice, amazingly people want and need  it but don’t crave it.

Not lots of friends – yes, friends are important but the number isn’t compelling.

Good health? – certainly, it is hoped for, expected and appreciated but people only seem to crave good health when they are faced with grave illness.

Power?  It’s a drug, wears off quickly and needs to be constantly fed.

The number one thing people crave is compassion.

Sympathy, pity, concern for their problems and sorrows.

And in the end, we do, too.

The perfect gift that makes people crave you is the ability to treat them with compassion.

Listen, relate, feel the pain and connect.

Since we know this is universally true, developing our ability to be compassionate toward others should be our main mission at work, at home and with ourselves.

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Exercise, diet, cosmetics, fashion – these are frequently employed ways to beat getting older.

Many of my college students think their 30’s will be the decade that all things good will happen.

For everyone else, it’s turn back the clock somehow, some way.

But it’s not numbers or workarounds that constitute the fountain of youth.

It’s enthusiasm.

Never outgrow your zest for enthusiasm.

Or as Henry David Thoreau put it “None are so old as those who have outlived their enthusiasm”.

At any age.

We can become more enthusiastic when we are more devoted to be grateful for all that we have not just that which we want.

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