The gift of your time.

It doesn’t really cost us anything.

It makes others feel better.

And in giving our time we receive the benefits as well.

Lawyers and other professionals keep a log of their billable hours for commerce purposes.

If we kept a log of our time, how much of it would go to someone who is not paying us for it?

“You give but little when you give of your possessions. It is when you give of yourself that you truly give” – Kahlil Gibran

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Money won’t do it.

Botox won’t either.

And power may actually turn people away.

The most reliable and predictable way to make others like us, no – love us – is to increase our humility.

Few think of things this way, but then again the world is increasingly filled with unhappy rich, successful and powerful people that others don’t like.

I know a wealthy TV personality who not only hands out gift cards to restaurants at holiday time to support personnel he comes in contact with daily, but stops and talks to everyone – from guard to janitor the other 364 days a year – calling them by name, inquiring about their families and showing genuine interest.

Or the surgeon who slips away on “vacation” to perform clef palate operations for needy children here and in other countries.

If we were judged not on how much money we have, or how much power we possess but by how humble we try to be, what would be our grade?

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We have no problem buying a giant drink or a large portion of food when we’re hungry.

So could the menu for life be ordering up more of what we like the best?

Educators say, education is one of the few things in life where we want as little as possible for the money.  How many classes can I miss? 

Try that when you buy a car:  “Do I have to take the air conditioning that was included for the price of this vehicle”?  That’s never going to happen.  We’ll take as much as we can get for the money.

Life is no different.

Time to supersize life by doing more of the things that we want to do – the things that bring us pleasure, make us feel worthwhile, connect us to more people.

1. If you don’t like your work, do something about it.  Work consumes the largest amount of our time so if we hate it, no wonder we’re not loving life.  Accept no excuses.  Don’t make any.  Pursue a new path.
2. Spend more time with people you like and less time with people you don’t like.  I know, we can’t choose our relatives and sometimes we like our jobs but hate our bosses.  Think of it like this, if we increased the amount of time we spend with the people who make us happier, we’ve taken a second positive step toward supersizing our life.
3. Always have something to look forward to.  My office is on a golf course and I often see the same people playing the same course over and over again.  They look miserable (Ha! They probably look up at me at my desk and say the same thing).  Never live a moment without something to aspire to – a new place to go, a new friend to make, something you’ve never experienced before.
4. Finally, see how many accomplishments you can have each day.  A new recipe, solving a problem that has been plaguing you, breaking a sales record.  Accomplishments – not just big ones but little ones – all feel the same.  Good.

Four steps to a happier, more fulfilling life that is possible right now.

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Few respond positively to criticism.

That’s why Dale Carnegie’s most famous human relations principle is “don’t criticize, condemn or complain”.

Yet we all do it.

And it still doesn’t work.

What about constructive criticism?

It’s like being a good teacher.  The message will not be heard until the person on the receiving end wants to hear it.

According to Gregg Walker, Department of Speech Communication at Oregon State University, here are some guidelines for the critic:

• Understand why you are offering the criticism
• Put yourself in the other person’s shoes
• Direct your criticism to the present not the past
• Criticize the deed not the person

Guidelines for those on the receiving end of criticism:

• Acknowledge criticism that focuses on your behavior
• Work hard to avoid becoming defensive
• Seek ownership of solutions
• Use “I” messages to clearly communicate how you feel about the criticism

For more helpful guidelines, click here.

“He has a right to criticize, who has a heart to help” – Abraham Lincoln

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Dale Carnegie always said a person’s name is to him or her the sweetest and most important sound in any language.

And yet, we hardly use a person’s name.

Not in email.

Not in person.

Not in a restaurant when dealing with a waiter or waitress.

Not even with employees, associates and families.

If you’re up for it, go out of your way to use the person’s name you are addressing or communicating with.  They will like it – no, they will love it.  And just by being thoughtful, you will win their attention.

The world is becoming a massive collection of “friends’ on Facebook, followers and trendsetters.

In digital, in print or face-to-face, use a person’s name and you’ll get their attention without screaming.

Try it.

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When we think of patience, we often think of that fallibility lots of us have where we become impulsive and distracted.

There’s that and there’s the kind of patience that is required to succeed.

Perhaps it can be called resolve.

And almost everyone has some degree of resolve that was acquired through life’s experience.  It’s just a matter of digging down deep inside on-demand for more of it.

In baseball, great hitters wait for the “right” pitch – the one they can hit on their terms.  That’s why it is not unusual for a patient batter to foul off pitch after pitch to remain “alive” long enough to see the one pitch that they are looking for to hit out of the ballpark.

White Sox player Luke Appling fouled off 15 Bob Feller pitches during Feller’s 1940 opening day no-hitter.

The Phillies Richie Ashburn fouled off 14 straight pitches from Cincinnati hurler Corky Valentine in 1954 before drawing a walk.

Patience is not just waiting.

It is waiting to succeed.

“The two most powerful warriors are time and patience” — Tolstoy

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I once saw a demonstration of two people “attempting” to communicate with each other with the help of a psychologist.

Picture this.

The man on one side, the women on the other and the headshrinker in the middle.

He started first.

“What one thing do you really want to tell your wife about what makes you angry?” the psychologist asked.

He babbled on for a few minutes when the psychologist interrupted and said to his wife, “What is your husband trying to say to you?”

And she could not do it.  In fact, her inability to hear what he was trying to say inflamed the discussion.  And yes, the exact same thing happened when his wife tried to communicate what irked her with her husband. 

Communicating doesn’t just mean talking.

It also means, making sure the message is delivered and understood by the other party.

The “Sender” can help by capsulizing in one sentence the gist of his or her comments upon conclusion.

The “Receiver” can help by hearing the comments without prejudice – in other words, from the perspective of the “Sender” first and then give a response.

Our lives are full of communication tools and yet we often hear of broken relationships due to an inability to communicate.

A few hints:

1. Begin with something positive – nothing opens ears more than positivity.
2. Do not attack.
3. Be careful not to exaggerate because even a slight exaggeration gives the other person a reason to reject everything you’re saying.
4. Provide evidence of what makes you feel this way.
5. Focus on one topic – not everything including the kitchen sink.


“The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place”  – George Bernard Shaw

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There are so many books, apps and lectures designed to teach us to win the enthusiastic cooperation of others.

But here’s one I have used – it’s short, it’s sweet and it never fails to work.

Stand next to the person whose 100% cooperation you are seeking.

1. With their permission, ask if you can grasp their hand and then ask them to pull as hard as they can away from you while you pull in the opposite direction.  Point out that when this happens in life or at the workplace, the struggle becomes the only result.  No ground is gained.
2. Then continuing to clasp them by the hand, ask the other person not to pull away from you – just stand still.  Now, point out that even when people don’t consciously resist, they are not readily moving in the same direction.  They become deadweight.
3. Finally, ask the other person to move with you as you grasp their hand and pull in the same direction.  This illustrates how two people moving in the same direction can get there faster.

I’ve done this at meetings where you ask attendees to pair off and try it.

From now on, you have graphically instructed those around you that enthusiastic cooperation is an active function that requires moving forward not resisting and most importantly that standing still is not enthusiastic cooperation.

“People who work together will win, whether it be against complex football defenses, or the problems of modern society” – Vince Lombardi

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Some days it is easy to throw our hands up in the air and stop trying.

When everything becomes difficult and life becomes a struggle.

Get out of the rut.

1. Figure out the things you like to do – even in bad times – and do them every day.  Find 3 and make them a part of every day going forward.
2. Set the timer on your phone to go off every few hours and when it does make note of what you are doing at that time.  Do you like it?  Do this for several weeks or a month and you will soon discover the things that make you happy that you are not now doing.  Then start doing them.
3. When you hit a low, get busy doing things you like. 
4. Go to bed early after a bad day and hit reset the next morning.  Why drag out a bad day when you can rest up to start another good one tomorrow.
5. Have the courage to let go.  Again and again we discover the power of giving up control and so we may discover parts of life we could not have planned for.  You may have heard that Google Maps is getting ready to introduce a feature called Field Trip, a way to go beyond getting specific directions we seek and discovering places around us.  We need more of that.  Seek out the unscheduled moment because it may be your happiest one yet.

“The truth is that our finest moments are most likely to occur when we are feeling deeply uncomfortable, unhappy, or unfulfilled. For it is only in such moments, propelled by our discomfort, that we are likely to step out of our ruts and start searching for different ways or truer answers” – M. Scott Peck

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A man in the hospital that I never knew taught me the greatest lesson about overcoming pain and disappointment.

While visiting a friend, my friend shared with me something I have remembered since the first day I heard it.

As I was trying to cheer her up, she wound up cheering me up by telling me of a young man who was in traction and forbidden to move his limbs for the best part of six weeks.

But it was his advice that resonated.

“I added up the number of days I was expected to be laid up and then figured out what percentage of my life this painful inconvenience would cost me.  And you know what, it was something like 0.0001 days of my expected life span”.

That’s how he reminded himself that while six weeks down and out is a sizeable inconvenience today; it is a very, very small part of his entire life.

The same applies to other health problems like the burden of chemotherapy.

Working in a job you don’t like but unable to find a new one – yet.

The perspective of time is a great healer in more ways than one.

Putting in perspective the bad break with all the time we are reasonably expecting on this earth is the secret to surviving short-term inconvenience long enough to get through it.

“We must be willing to let go of the life we have planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us” — 
E.M. Forster

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