Companies struggle with managing risks as an ongoing part of their businesses – sometimes successfully, sometimes not.

For individual who are risk averse, a warning that trying to avoid the implications of doing something new, different or even radical can sometimes be more damaging than taking chances.

Afraid to look for a new job?

Many people bury themselves in the rigors of their current job saying they have little time to look for a new challenge.   But then when their employer lays people off, they pay the full price just by trying to stay under the radar.

Afraid to end a relationship that is hurtful or unproductive? All the energy that goes into maintaining a status quo that isn’t working often is more damaging than taking a breather and starting over again (whatever that may bring).

Fear you’ll lose the love of your children if you get too aggressive in setting up and maintaining healthy boundaries? It is the opposite. Young people welcome boundaries as long as they have room to navigate and test themselves within them.

Ironically, most of the things we value in life from entertainment, music and relationships are the direct effect of people taking prudent risks so that they can grow.

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Women are often asked if it is possible to have it all?  I guess men get that question but I have heard it more from women.

It is asked of them because even in a day of growing equality, they often work harder for less than men and continue to take on more domestic responsibilities – although that gap is changing a bit.

Many are worn out even if they are proud that they could balance everything on their shoulders.

But what does having it all mean?

A better question is:  what do you really want?

What makes life the most rewarding for you?

We all have a tendency to multitask our way through life but a better approach may be to prioritize.

What comes first?

Then what’s next?

Is there time for anything else and if so what would that be?

Having it all is only meaningful if you’re having what you really want first.

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• No cancer, heart disease or any other life threatening illness, I’ll bet we’d take that.
• Don’t have a job that you hate.  Gratitude for working in an area that invigorates you.
• No longer have your parents?  You can replay memorable moments and live them all over again.
• Didn’t get what you really, really wanted?  Wait a little while because once the disappointment wears off something impossible to have foreseen may have swept down and landed in your path.

When Jimmy Carter announced to the world that he had cancer, he spent the news conference talking about the gratitude for living a full life with his wife beyond their expectations.

Although he was about to enter an experimental treatment program, he said he was content with the life that he lived.

Then what happened?

Carter’s experimental drug regime sent his brain cancer into remission at his ripe old age of 90 years.

Sometimes by focusing on what we have – not what we don’t have or have lost – miraculously brings us another gift.

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One of the most discouraging things that ever happened to me in radio was delivering an outstanding ratings book and then losing my job.

How could that be?

If life were rational, it would be easy to explain.

The audience was too young – a lot of listeners the station apparently did not want so they were prepared to go in a more adult direction.

That didn’t work out for the station which eventually had to be sold.

But for me, it was a critical career point.  Do I keep doing what I am doing and have to live by unfair metrics or do I do something else.

After a very long time on the beach, fate and a changing attitude made me realize that I was born to be an entrepreneur.  A risk taker.  I wanted to be my own boss.

I cannot image what my life would have been like if I just simply replaced the job I lost with another one like the other one.

Perhaps you’ve been in a situation similar to this?

Discouragement can lead to despair and despair to the inability to make a decision.

Or discouragement can be the precursor to encouragement.

Why am I discouraged?  Is it the work?  Or do I not want to be working in that industry?

Whether discouragement creeps into our career, marriage or family life, it can be a harbinger of good things to come when we see it for the gift that it often is.

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This is less complicated than it sounds and you’re hearing this from a guy who made his living in the communications business.

Talking is not listening.

Listening is the act of being 100% present with what another person is saying.

Not thinking about your next response.

Not necessarily sharing your parallel experience because most people want to be heard.

As a professor I learned quickly that no matter how expert I thought I was on the subject matter, it was easier to get students engaged by listening to them.

My best friend was such a good listener that when he was interrupted – say, by a waiter or waitress looking to top off our coffees – I would forget where I left off, but he never did.

And he proudly, said “When you speak, I listen”.

The art of active listening in real time begins not when we shut our mouths but when we open our minds to what is being shared.

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Relationships are everything in life.

Money and power cannot compare to meaningful, warm relationships between people.

They are also the most difficult thing we have to deal with in life.

• We are not communicating heart to heart and feeling-to-feeling because we are more distracted than ever.

• People are not sharing their lives on an emotional level.

• Distorted ideas about each other can be dealt with through attempting to understand what the other person is saying.

We live in an era that has more ways to communicate than ever and yet we arguably have less personal communication.

Here it is in a sentence:

When you can accurately repeat back what the other person is feeling – whether you agree with it or not – you have arrived at the threshold of healing wounded relationships.

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Inexplicably, civilization seems hell bent to ruin the lives of others by bullying them on social media.

Fat shaming by any name is hurtful and mean and it is possibly en masse because of social media.

Quick.

Think of how you were bullied in elementary, middle or high school and now imagine how it would feel if more than you and a small group of onlookers could hear the insults.

That is what all types of people – young children, teens and even adults are subjected to.

And a big area for trolls is insulting body types – especially for women.

And women are fighting back with full, natural photos of larger body types.

Anyone who has ever been subjected to this type of insult knows how deep it can cut.

• People should be judged not by how big they are, but by how big their heart is.

• Everyone is beautiful in their own way – over popular culture “in” looks have ranged from full-figures to Twiggy.

• It is not enough to simply avoid hurting others but by actively defending and pursuing in a safe manner those who are so cowardly as to publicly humiliate another while hiding behind social media.

The best way to deal with a bully is to fight back.

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On the way up to New York last week on New Jersey Transit I made fast friends with a nice lady, a psychologist, who was on her way to Sloan Kettering for her granddaughter’s surgery that day.

Six-year old Sophi was diagnosed with a cancerous brain tumor that was discovered quite by accident – she got a bug bite near her eye and doctors started their investigation that led to a fortunately early diagnosis from there.

Sophi has a legion of followers on Facebook’s Sophi Strong and, although her tumor has been reduced, she has a lifetime of medical surveillance ahead of her.

When bad things happen to little people who have barely begun living, it reminds us of our humanity.

What are WE complaining about?

How can we make life more meaningful for whatever number of years we have ahead?

We also come to terms with this.

There is no guarantee of anything – in terms of time or in happiness.

In their own simple way, children who face adversity show the rest of us how to live.

100% in the now.

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That’s humility – something we see a lot less of in our world of social engagement and self-absorption.

Recently I read an article in The New York Times in which the writer conveyed a story about her daughter who didn’t want to play the part of the pig that got eaten in a school play.

Even though she agreed to accept the ground rules before the parts were assigned.

When children are allowed to opt out of situations because they don’t like them, they risk not growing as humans.

When we get our way enough we sometimes realize that not getting our way can be life changing.

That’s where humility comes in.

In generations past, humility showed up in sports.

Teachers were humble but some college professors are too arrogant to learn from their students which, after all, is the goal because “the teacher and the taught together do the teaching”.

Humility is a modest view of our own self-importance.

It is the quality that endears us to others and makes us a better person.

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Some of the worst lifetime decisions I have made have been the ones where I am so emotionally involved that I cannot think straight.

And that’s a great way to put the problem – the inability to think straight.

Most of us have what it takes to make better decisions if we could only separate our hearts from our minds.

This is the advice that helps me.

Think with your head.  Feel with your heart.

There is a place for feeling in every important decision we make but doing what is best for us is often a matter of the head.

• You may be emotionally entangled with someone you love, but do they make a good life partner?  That decision is best made in the mind not the heart.

• You may love your children so much that you can feel how much you want them to succeed and will do everything you can to will it so.  But the mind tells us that making mistakes and learning from them is the real gift and we arrive at that through our mindful consideration.

What’s encouraging is to know that if we differentiate between feeling and thinking, we probably already have the ability to make better decisions for us and those who depend on us.

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