Love is what keeps us in special relationships but novelty is what helps love continue to grow.

1. Meet your partner every day as if you’re meeting them after 30 days.  The response will be all consuming.  Before walking in the door to greet loved ones say to yourself, “Pretend I’m coming home from a month long absence.  How eager would I be and how would I act?”
2. Be aware of how finite life is.  When you think how many more Christmases you have together, you tend not to waste valuable time.  Children grow up and go to college when they are 17 or 18, how many family vacations together do you have?  This one thought guarantees that you will have no regrets.
3. For the first 5 minutes when you engage with family members, don’t try to improve them.  Either improve them or enjoy them.  You can’t do both.

Enter free agency just like pro athletes.

They rent themselves out for relatively short periods of time – one to seven years at the best price they can get.

But it works for the rest of us, too.

Here’s what I do.

In a few weeks, I’ll reconvene at the Jersey Shore to decide how I want to spend the next year.  I like one-year arrangements because I own the company, but I have done longer deals with employers.

Should I continue writing my websites?  Change the model?  Launch short form video projects?  Do more speaking and seminars?  Write another book?

I factor in things like compensation, family and personal happiness and location.

I clear my mind of any prejudices I might have about what I did last year and face any fears of doing something completely unknown.

Within days I have a digital device full of notes and ideas and before the week is out I will either recommit to what I am doing, change some of it, change all of it or disrupt my career.

Avoiding getting stuck in a career and a life that has become monotonous is the goal.  I feel like I am actually taking charge of my life by going through this quite pleasant process every summer while vacationing.

Even for those of us with careers that are hard to leave – medicine or law come to mind – going through this process reinvigorates you when you consciously re-up for another year as your best chosen option.

I have more details on how to become a free agent in my book Out of Bad Comes Good – The Advantages of Disadvantages in Chapter 10 (Career Chaos).

I’ve made the chapter available free for those interested – read it here.

Don’t try to change your partner.

It cannot be done no matter how hard you try.  So the best alternative is to accept the person you love unconditionally.

This does not mean that certain accommodations can be for the happiness of both parties.

1. Listen and learn – most people in life are more than content if they can get someone – anyone – to actually listen to them.  Often, listening is enough.  You can imagine why spouses and partners grow angry at their mates when they feel they are not being heard.
2. Better yet, reinforce what the other person is saying – meaning, if your spouse says we never have dinner together, work always interferes.  When you plan a dinner together, reinforce that you liked dining earlier with the person you love.  Don’t say, “You wanted me to come home early, so I did, are you happy?”
3. Give up control – controlling people ruins the lives of those around them and their own lives as well.  Try to just let go and see if it kills you.  It won’t, but you may feel a lot better.  Relationships thrive when they are free to grow.

Lots of books have been written and money spent on counseling to help couples improve their marriages.

Who knew that the free advice is the best advice?

Accept each other the way you are – no changes required.

Not maintaining a healthy weight.

Not exercising.

Not quitting smoking.

Doctors say these things do help.

But as amazing as it may seem, simply smiling adds years to our lives.

Researchers studied the smiles of 196 baseball players based on their pictures taken in 1952.  The non-smilers lived an average of 72.9 years.

But those who smiled lived to be 75 – almost three full years longer simply by smiling.

And those who were pictured with so-called Duchenne smiles which engage the muscles of both the mouth and the eyes lived an average of 79.9 years – almost 7 extra years by lightening up.

Being a sour puss robs us of valuable years.

Here’s the study – fascinating reading.

Since, as the song “Smiling Faces” reminds us, a smile is just a frown turned upside down, we now have the best motivation ever to permanently put a grin on our faces.

It’s not the amount of time, but the amount of you in that time.

A one-hour dinner with the family if you’ve had to text or talk to someone else in the middle of the meal is not as good as fewer minutes face-to-face with no distractions.

A day with your children is not necessarily better than just the two of you telling stories and sharing experiences for an hour at the end of the day.

A long meeting with associates is not more effective than a short meeting where everyone stands (not sits) and focuses 100% of attention on solving a specific problem then coming up with a plan of action.

Guilt about being busy is lessened to the extent that we can focus 100% of our attention on the people who are important in our lives.

It’s about quality not quantity.

Our lifelong search for how to become more efficient and reclaim lost hours is a vicious cycle.

We actually have all the time we need.

What is missing is putting more you into the time you have.

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Live each day like it is your last.

Or as Steve Jobs said in a commencement address to Stanford graduates in 2008:

“…For the past 33 years, I’ve looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself, if today were the last day of my life would I want to do what I am about to do today.  And whenever the answer has been no for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.”

Jobs says remembering that we will be dead soon was the most important tool he could use to have the courage to make the big choices in life.

Fear of failure dissipates in the face of death.

It’s why a person who has conquered cancer lives the next portion of their lives so differently — as bravely as they fought the cancer itself.

As Jobs said, “Your time is limited so don’t waste it living someone else’s life”.

Do the thing you fear to do and the fear will go away from you.

Feel with your heart.

Think with your mind.

Never stop dreaming.

For the fear of something to lose is an illusion.

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In 2012, 3,328 people died and another 421,000 people were injured in accidents involving distracted drivers.

I once asked for a show of hands among my USC college students for those who texted while they drove.  The laughter was loud and long.  Almost everyone does it.

Stupid question.

To take the cure, play this very short video from Volkswagen.

In it, a group of Hong Kong moviegoers are looking at a screen that puts them in the driver’s seat of a moving car.

Then, a mass text is sent to the audience simultaneously.

They reach for their phones, look down and … well, see for yourself.

I don’t think anyone could text and drive after seeing this.

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Yelling is as hurtful as hitting.

Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh and University of Michigan say that parents who yell at their adolescent children for doing something wrong cause the same problems as hitting them would.  The study included 976 two-parent families with children ages 13-14.

The recipients of this kind of verbal abuse tend to become more depressed and more aggressive as a result.

“Lazy” and “stupid” and other hurtful words even resonate if the parents have a warm loving relationship with their children otherwise.

The study also showed that yelling makes a person do the opposite of what they want.

45% of the participating mothers and 42% of the fathers said they had used harsh verbal discipline within the past year.  Almost everyone does it and few are proud of it.

Beyond teens, yelling has the same effect.

It’s abuse.

Better option:  take away privileges without the corresponding harsh language.

When you yell, it hurts the self-image of those you love, know or work with.

Making someone feel worthwhile instead of worthless is the more productive alternative.

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“I wish you well”.

Realize that everyone is struggling with something and silently wish them well when they say something mean, hurtful or devious.

You don’t have to like what they say or do, but you don’t have to let them bring out the bad side of you.

You get uplifted when you wish people well.

You get the benefit.

Doctors have mapped positive changes in the brain when you accentuate the positive side of your personality.

Do it often every day – to people you know, don’t know or live with.

It helps keep your energy up.

As you practice it becomes easier.

Stress Free Living author Amit Sood reminds us that there was a time in prehistoric days when the focus had to constantly be on outside threats (animals, being attacked). 

The world has changed.  We are no longer on threat-watch.

Our brains need to be rewired.

The simple phrase “I wish you well” said silently many times a day is how you rewire your brain for happiness.

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More research reinforces what we have come to know – that Jon Stewart’s Comedy Central news show is more credible than traditional news channels and journalists.

Is it a stretch to say Stewart is to this generation what Walter Cronkite was during the Kennedy assassination and Vietnam War days?

Why is this?

Fast-moving communications, an infinite number of news sources available to consumers and a fear of telling the truth because journalists and news organizations might be sued. 

Stewart does parody which insulates him against such lawsuits and yet in his comedic presentation of the day’s big stories, he manages to do something that has gotten lost lately.

He is credible because he is authentic.

And authenticity is the characteristic that younger people crave today.

Being the real deal is not hard to do.  It involves not being perfect, not always being right, but being human and having a sense of humor about yourself.

These qualities are the secret to success in news and important ways for all of us to gain the trust of those with whom we come in contact.

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