Go to the fountain and drink of the knowledge.

Are we listening when others speak?  This does not mean agreeing all the time, it means hearing what they have to offer.

Are we doing all the talking?   Social media and texting encourages a lot of self-centered focus that eventually makes the narrative about us and not others.

Some people are outstanding listeners but most of the rest of us are distracted listeners.

We can learn to be better listeners.

Train yourself to recap what another person has said and repeat the essence of it to them.

“If I’m hearing you right, you’re saying that …” 

If they confirm, congratulations – you’re becoming a better listener.

If they add to it, you are skillfully drawing them out.

If they correct you, then you have saved yourself from getting it wrong and miscommunicating.

Everyone wants to be a better listener because people are attracted to those who can listen.

Being heard is one of the great human needs.

We have learned over time not to be good listeners and we can train ourselves to be better with very little effort.

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It’s hard to be surrounded by people who are eternally positive in our increasingly negative world.

But those who can generate their own positivity can benefit by avoiding heart disease, reducing blood pressure and impacting in a good way on blood sugar.

Gratitude is one way, but we often think we have tons of that.

You can’t be negative when you are being grateful. 

Recognize others and sharing it with them. 

Keeping a list of positive things that are happening to you on your phone so you can scroll through and remain inspired. 

Become more aware of stress and put a stop/loss on it as soon as you feel it developing.

Staying positive is not about Pollyanna.

Positive can mean something relatively unsexy like catching yourself from putting down an accomplishment that even others acknowledge.

Staying positive to benefit health is not about rah-rah things, it’s about keeping control of your narrative and protecting it from the negativity of others.

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With as few as only two weeks training in the areas of kindness and compassion, positive changes occur in the brain.

Focusing on these two things help us become physically and emotionally healthier by in essence retraining the brain.

Focus on positive emotions and they magically occur.

Doing good things for others – Even small things that you would think as inconsequential count.

Become more aware of the world around you – Just trying to notice the sand on the beach or the flower in the garden helps re-train the brain.

Live in the now – Ruminating on the past is actually proven to physically adversely alter parts of the brain so living in the present and giving up control can help us.

Accomplish something every day – Attainable goals checked off as “accomplished” are friendly to the brain and our wellbeing.

Be proud of who you are – Perfection has never been achieved by any one person in all of time but the pursuit of perfection bodes negatively on our compassion and caring of others.

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Stephen Colbert’s switch from Comedy Central to David Letterman’s replacement on CBS Television had not been going well.

He was out of character in more ways than one.

Was he the pundit character of his old show or a Letterman-like substitute for the retiring late night host?

Everything changed for the positive when a new producer was appointed and he told Colbert “Stop being funny and go and just be real”.

Why is it so easy to forget to be our natural selves?

It didn’t hurt that Colbert’s sweet spot was politics and last year was a bonanza.

Now Colbert is beating Jimmy Fallon who had been dominant in the ratings.

He seems self-assured.

Colbert is an admitted “control freak” and everyone knows that won’t work except perhaps the actual control freak.

Sometimes everything we’re looking to be is already there within us – just lost trying to be someone else who is not as good.

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Why is it so hard to say I made a mistake?

Making a mistake is not a sign of weakness, just humanity.

It is a sign that we are not perfect and sometimes we stand up on a pedestal that we don’t deserve to be on because no person can achieve perfection whether in the public eye, at work or in marriage.

United Airlines took at least 3 attempts at saying they were sorry for basically beating up a passenger and dragging him off one of their planes recently in what turned out to be a YouTube success and a corporate failure.

Politicians who make mistakes virtually never admit mistakes until they are caught red handed.

Dale Carnegie encourages people to admit their mistakes quickly and emphatically.  Translated that means fast and clearly.

If you haven’t apologized lately, watch what happens when you say you’re sorry and sincerely mean it.

Almost always, you wind up feeling as good as the person you apologized to.

One way not to apologize is to say “If I did anything wrong, I’m sorry”.

If?

Every good apology contains sincerity, a bit of your own humanity and simple language.

Apologizing is another human relations tool that is misunderstood, underutilized and a great alternative to hard feelings.

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Humans are not expected to perform any function forever at the same level as they do when they are young.

A 40-year old tennis star is working overtime to compete with a 20-year old.

A pitcher with a 90-mph fastball cannot throw those pitches as their career moves on and often needs another pitch – a slider, curveball or whatever to remain viable.

This is not a sign of weakness but a sign of strength.

The seller who is burned out on selling.

The manager who wants to do something entirely different.

Life is full of endless possibilities if we adopt the mindset to look for that next “pitch” that we can put in our arsenal of skills as we continue to play the game of life.

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Millennials 19-35 years old have a higher incidence of anxiety than any other generation, but they don’t have a monopoly on it.

If it’s getting out of hand, there are lifelines available …

1. Consider others, but please yourself – One person cannot be all things to all people without feeling distressed.
2. Time shift worry to a certain time one day a week– Say, Tuesday night between 7:30 and 8 pm for example.  By time shifting worry, you are not blindly ignoring it but you’re also not obsessing about it either.
3. Let go – One of the biggest sources of anxiety is trying to maintain some control over a life that seems so out of control.  The best and only way to gain control is to give up control.  We can control ourselves.  Trying to control others is a sure ticket to unhappiness whether we like it or not.
4. Reign in social media – Social media and even texting to groups sets up a fantasy world of expectations and perceived desires that make us miserable.  Enjoy social media like a Haagen-Dazs ice cream bar, it’s the dessert not the meal.

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More tears are shed and anguish generated from broken relationships.

Except that all humans have some degree of dysfunctional relationships.

One of the most painful is when we unconditionally love a person who cannot seem to return our feelings.

Withholding ours is not the answer and feeling shamed or abused by the lack of love we feel from them is a black hole of hurt feelings.

Our role is to love those who deserve it – friends, family – with all our hearts.

Expecting the same and equal love in return is exposing us to a lifetime of disappointment.

Some people are not capable of love – even to love themselves in a healthy way.

When you give love without expectations, you will find at least one important kind of love in return every time.

The love of self.

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We are what we spend our time becoming.

If we are devoting increasing amounts of time to social media, then we are becoming more proficient at digital connections not necessarily meaningful relationships.

If we make a demonstrable attempt to spend more time with people in person, on the phone, by Skype, we are becoming more proficient at interacting with people and appreciating the nuances of their voices and personalities in real time.

Should we find ourselves talking about others in unflattering ways, we are investing our precious capital (time) in a losing pursuit that will eventually make us become them.

But take no joy in the failings of others by remembering our own failings and we’re in the midst of an awesome self-improvement program.

If we’re obsessed with living the life we really want to live and not the life others divert us towards then the return on investment will be rich and rewarding.

When we understand that growing wealth is a direct result of pursing excellence above money, we have discovered the real secret to being rich.

How and where we spend our time tells us more about ourselves than any other indicator.

We become what we spend our time pursing for better or for worse.

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No matter how smart you are, no person can ever see even 5 years from now.

If you put yourself back to where you were 5 years ago – the place, the people, the work, your health, your ambitions, it is likely that fate had other plans.

It is better to be nimble than to be all knowing.

Harvard Business School was among the many universities that used to teach its students to do 5 year plans when they entered the business world.

But 5 years is an eternity.

Could you have known that SnapChat, the audio and video social network that allows users to destroy content after it has been viewed would be bigger than Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or any other social medium?

It’s been only ten years since the iPhone came along so, could you have built a business plan around a world that never puts its phone down?

Could you have predicted the election of the president or the prospects for the economy?

Could you have predicted your health or that of loved ones near you in that period or the people you have lost?

Being nimble is the virtue that allows us to maximize our chances for health, wealth and happiness not futilely trying to channel Nostradamus.

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