Saying “if I offended you, I am sorry” is not an adequate apology.

Saying “I’m sorry” right away as soon as you’ve offended or hurt someone and repeating it emphatically is.

Actually SAY the thing you are sorry for.

It was insensitive of me to write that on social media.  I regret it and apologize. I hope you can forgive me.

I should never have referred to your weight.  You are a beautiful person as is.  Please forgive me for forgetting that. 

These are authentic apologies because they actually say what you’re sorry for and emphasize that you are indeed sorry.

I should have consulted you before making that decision.  I was wrong.  I will try to be aware of it in the future.  I can do better.

That kind of apology actually elicits love and respect in return.

Because if you haven’t apologized a couple of times today, you aren’t human.

Humans make mistakes and apologizing is not shameful, it’s prideful.

Apologizing in a sincere and authentic way says I will be better and that’s something to always be proud of.

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1.  The next time you walk into a room where there are seats, go to the front and take yours. Simply acting like you have confidence to be down in front, makes you more confident.  Often, the least confident people arrogate in the back.

2. When you get an opportunity to volunteer, be the first to say “I will”.  Words mean a lot to others and even more to our inner self.

3. Let someone else have their way.  The act of deferring to another person shows inner strength and we are rewarded not only with a boost of self-confidence but by gratitude from others.

4. Go one full day without saying the word “can’t”. When we stop running ourselves down, we automatically start building ourselves up.

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John Glenn was the first American to circle the earth in orbit in the early 1960’s when America was losing the space race to the Russians.

Much later at 77 years old, Glenn was the oldest man to ever enter space aboard the space shuttle. In between, he served almost two decades as a senator from Ohio and died recently at the age of 95 – a full life indeed.

Two things.

America needs goals and we as individuals need dreams. Too often we fantasize about our futures without realizing that we have one life and one chance to do all we can to live those dreams.

And, the lesser known story of John Glenn’s wife, Annie, who had a serious stuttering problem for almost 50 years until she came upon a program that purported to help stutterers overcome their disability.

It is said when Annie Glenn called her husband after completing the protocol, he was moved to tears. Annie Glenn then spent the rest of her life helping others deal with stuttering.

Whether our goals are in outer space or deep within ourselves, John and Annie Glenn show us that pursuing your dreams is not just rocket science.

It is the life we deserve.

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Repeat after me …

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

If I’ve never done it before, I will use an IOU from the many things I have done well in the past.

I am not afraid of failure – I will learn from it.

Assume a virtue if you have it not.

If I don’t believe in me, I don’t have the right to ask anyone else to believe in me.

Now, repeat again and again during the day.

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The best way to deal with difficult people is to make it difficult for them to be difficult.

As much as you may despise their behavior, do not try to change the difficult person. They love that.

Deliver the message that you don’t take them seriously.  They hate that.

Use humor to avoid giving their trouble legitimacy. 

Fog the issue if pressed.  In other words, blow them off.

Difficult people are looking for attention and control.

When they realize that they can neither get your attention nor gain control of your decisions, they may try, but they will fail.

The most difficult person to deal with is one who has earned your trust, one that you are related to or who controls your pay check.

In all case, shift from reactive to proactive to put them in their place.

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Research, metrics, focus groups and other tools exist to help us make better decisions.

But Proctor & Gamble (P&G), General Foods and others have big budgets to test and market new products and yet still don’t bat 1.000.

Before the iPod, MP3 players were a cult product.

When Steve Jobs introduced the iPad, people said who needs a tablet when you have a phone and a laptop.

This is the stuff that humility is made of.

When we make major decisions, we can stick to the facts or we could get the facts and factor in our intuition.

Doubting our gut is always a bad bet if for no other reason than our inner feeling wants to tell us something.

Learn to listen to your intuition, your gut feeling and along with facts better life decisions can be made.

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A recent study in the publication Nature suggests mind wandering is more helpful than hunkering down and becoming obsessed with that which causes anxiety.

Mind wandering?

Let your mind wander away from perceived threats.  As Harvard Medical School points out getting a grip on threats may not be as effective as allowing the mind to wander.

We obsess by focusing in on anxiety not letting go of it and that makes the anxiety even more unbearable.

“So when you’re next feeling anxious or wired, try allowing your mind to do what it naturally does — wander!”

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If you do this one thing, everything else will fall into place.

Manage others exactly as you would like to be managed.

Talk to them the way you best respond to others.

Ask them to help you, don’t tell them – the way you like to hear it.

Show the compassion and understanding that managers often lack but everyone craves.

Build others up, do not tear them down because all of us hate that and yet it is so pervasive in today’s work culture.

Harvard promotes working in teams, but not without the human relations skills to deal with divergent points of view.

In other words, if there is one way to become more effective at managing people, you need only one thought all day.

Manage others exactly as you would like to be managed.

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Thanksgiving weekend marked the revival of the hit television series Gilmore Girls.

A generation or two curled up to watch the new episodes on Netflix but also to go back and watch complete previous seasons.

Binge-watching has been made possible by Netflix and it is a useful tool to consume TV content on your schedule.

What if we binged on friends putting aside extra time to catch up with people who are important to us?

Or binge on family and relatives.  The author Dr. Amit Sood always says each Christmas he counts the number of Christmases he has left with his mother and father based on actuarial tables, not to get depressed, but to get inspired to share these valuable moments.

There are people in our lives right now that need to hear our voices, see our faces and spend time 100% focused on them.

What a wonderful way to extend the gift of binge-watching to enhance meaningful relationships.

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No one is going to surprise us what is causing anxiety and stress in our lives because chances are we already know. 

We already know what is eating us alive but we don’t seem to have the will to stop it.

The smartphone is not making us happier, but we know that and continue to hold it in our hand and focus more attention on that than people who really matter.

Social media, email, texting and an endless path to connectivity has actually made us less connected to people we used to experience in person, but that’s not a revelation either.

Multitasking is inefficient and more stressful than setting priorities yet a day doesn’t go by that someone with a phone in hand says, “keep talking, I’m listening” while they sit there distracted.  And that person sitting there is also us.

Taking on too much work that we cannot complete is a recipe for burnout only because one of the most important words is not being used – no.  Saying yes and killing yourself is not a good outcome but it is the one chosen time after time at work.

Hating on people at work is what other people do, right?  It is a total waste of time because eventually what you dislike in another changes the good things about you.

Not enough exercise and healthy diet makes us tired, disagreeable and sick.  Still, look where most of us go to eat lunch.

And having a career and raising a family is stressful beyond description.  We do it, but we often don’t do it well if we’re winding up burned out.   It’s not the total amount of time you spend with family members, it’s the total time you spend 100% present.

Burnout is often self-inflicted because in almost every instance, there is a better choice.

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