One of my readers tells me of a psychologist friend of his who has developed a way of shaking awake couples whose marriages are mired in arguing.

The first half hour is devoted to the litany of complaints from both the wife and her husband.

At that point, the psychologist asks the wife to leave the room while she (presumably) thinks he’s going to read the riot act to her husband.

Then he tells the husband “Buddy, you & your wife can come here once a week for a long time and do this and make my car payment for me or you can walk out of here today and never see me again if you answer this question correctly.  Do you want to be right or do you want to be happy?”

It could just as easily work the other way around – the advice delivered to the wife and this is not to say that real issues should be avoided.

When arguing becomes a sport in which both spouses look to rack up points, the marriage is not going to be happy.

Choose your poison.

Be right or be happy.

14-year old Carleigh O’Connell is a Jersey Girl and thereby special to this Jersey Boy.

Unfortunately she was denigrated by bullies who made fun of her butt by spray painting “Carleigh’s Ass” on a cement abutment at the Jersey shore.

This is New Jersey – they’re going down.

Carleigh shows us the textbook way to stand up to such cowards by harnessing the power of social media.

She posted a photo in Facebook snapped with the graffiti in the picture and told her mom to post it as well.

Here’s what Carleigh’s mother wrote:

“[Carleigh] decided that she was going to be stronger than hurtful words on the concrete and that she was going to be proud of her figure … She also told me that she feels complete sympathy for the teenagers across the country who face this everyday. She understands and wants all of them to find strength inside to rise above the nastiness and be empowered by who you are, how you are made and what is in your heart”.

Many commenters said they wish they had Carleigh’s butt.

Isn’t Carleigh beautiful?

Isn’t she smart?

That’s what Uber does.

The popular replacement for mundane taxicabs allows customers to rate their drivers and now it has become known that the drivers also get to rate their customers.

In one article I read on this, the author was concerned that this information could be used against customers who were continually rated as being less than the best.

The company might even one day discriminate against their call for a ride if Uber drivers as a group thought little of you.

Whatever happened to the notion that the customer is always right even if he or she is a jerk?

But take this issue to folks under 30 and you’ll see that they think vendors and service companies such as Uber have a right to rate customers.

It’s only fair.

This is also a generation that has pioneered rating college professors on their teaching abilities.  As a professor, I rather looked forward to my ratings at USC.

Got me to thinking.

What would my rating be if the people I came in contact with in daily life could rate me from A to F.

Even my wife?

Especially my wife.

360-degree input has arrived and is just as useful as a tool for all of us to up our game and bring out the best we have to offer in terms of humanity and human relations.

What do you think?

If we could devote 1/100^th of the time we spend to being physically fit and direct it toward training our core values, we would transform ourselves and realize our dream to become all that we can be.

Self-confidence doesn’t come from books or from pep talks.  It comes from the inner core of our being.  And the way we develop it is to get in touch with what our vision is for ourselves.

May I offer a few examples?

• Honesty – when we see ourselves as an honest person and picture it vividly all the time, we tend to make honest decisions and live up to the reputation we set for ourselves when life happens.
• Compassion – Just a word until we picture what kind of a compassionate person we want to be.  Often, we are compassionate to some people and not to others.  But when we visualize the type of compassion that we are striving for, the virtue unfolds.
• Self-confidence – Accept the fine person you are and don’t try to change it.  But what about becoming better?  We tend to do the right things automatically when we accept the gifts that make us unique and even different.
• Intimacy – The number one malady of most human beings is the failure to risk intimacy.  That is, to share our humanity with others.  We hold back in fear of being hurt.  If we see ourselves as individuals who want to show the warmth of our being to others, we become more approachable and happier.

All good training begins when we stop trying to fix everything that is wrong with us.

Focus on what is right.

The habitual action of making assumptions and responding as if they are facts stresses marriages.

When you’re sure you’re right, you are most often dead wrong.

When we fail to differentiate the difference between reality and our imagination, we guarantee failure to communicate.

So how to change?

A fact is something that can be observed and verified.

This month is August.

An assumption is something that is only accepted as true.

You can imagine how many misunderstandings we have had as husbands and wives over that which has been assumed rather than what is so.

There are lots of books on marriage.

And lots of psychiatrists and psychologists who will be happy to schedule you in for 45 minutes, but one of the best ways to eliminate the fuel for fighting is to take the time to get the facts first.

I could have been your doctor.

Scary thought, eh?

Yes, when I was 21, someone close to me kept nudging me to go to medical school even though I was happy being a radio and TV personality.

So they arranged an interview with the Chief of Medicine at Temple University Hospital and during the interview he asked me more about the Philadelphia radio and TV scene than I was able to ask about the virtue of a career in medicine.

Even if I applied and was admitted to med school, I often wonder whether I would have been living someone else’s life.

Do you ever feel like that?

Steve Jobs told the graduating class of Stanford that they should stop living someone else’s life.  That he was optimistic he could survive his Pancreatic cancer and have a few more decades to do what he loves to do.

Obviously Jobs didn’t beat his cancer but he lived even his final moments exactly as he wished.

We are on loan to life.

Our children are temporarily in our custody then we must set them free.

We must someday say goodbye to all those we love and must surrender all the material things – including money – to others.

All the more reason to be selfish about one thing.

It’s your life.

Live it exactly the way you want.

In every way.

You never win an argument.

Not even if you think you’ve won.

Dale Carnegie used to say the best way to win an argument is to avoid it.

But there’s even better advice.

Understand the other person’s point of view before you ask them to understand yours.

We become focused on what we’re saying and if what we’re saying is rejected, then we feel rejected.

Give up the urge to be right.

Choose your arguments carefully.

Once, while meeting the parents of a girl I was dating, I witnessed an impressive example of this at dinner when her mother picked a fight with her father.  He tried for about a minute to react and then quickly – almost like magic – he said, “You’re right” because it wasn’t worth it to him.

When it is worth the debate understand how to stay cool (courtesy of Amit Sood):

• Stop your negative thoughts.
• Exhale deeply for a few breaths and watch your frustration leave with your breath.
• Redirect your thoughts to something you feel grateful for or someone you feel compassionate about.
• Evaluate what has you stressed using gratitude and compassion as your guide.
• Negotiate what you were doing but with a calmer mind and fresher perspective.

Hint:  assume the other person has positive intent, which will help the disagreement avoid the damaging rage that frequently erupts.

We can be lonely in a group of people.

Some spouses feel alone in their marriages.

All the Facebook friends and Instagram contacts does not guarantee that we are not lonely in our lives.

Loneliness is the feeling of being without friends and the closeness that comes from interaction with others.

Being alone is a regenerative state to help us get in touch with feelings, desires, dreams and allow us time to solve problems and deal with them.  It can also be a time of great focus on that which we have a great personal interest.

The best way to avoid loneliness and get the most out of being alone is to:

1. Work to have a solid support group of friends, family and associates at the ready for when you need them.
2. Never forget that time spent alone can be very valuable when it is a part of the more social aspects of our lives.
3. Use time alone to recharge and invest in yourself.
4. Use alone time to pursue your dreams.  No one ever realized big dreams without devoting one-on-one time with those dreams so that they can pursue those dreams in the future.

I love speaking before audiences but when I am done, I look forward to an equal and opposite amount of time alone with my thoughts to regenerate my feelings and balance my life.

Being alone, then, is a tool to help us avoid loneliness that brings sadness.

The Eagles had it right in “Take It Easy”:

“We may lose and we may win though we will never be here again”

In the radio industry right now some formerly ethical and moral people have sold their souls to make more money and acquire power.

It’s logical to want to earn a living and have an influence in this world especially in what we do, but far too often we lose sight of the end game.

Losing is transformational.

“Losers” almost always have another day as tomorrow’s success.

And winning is overrated when you have to sell your soul to chase money and might.

To avoid this sorry fate, the new mantra should be win or lose, we will never be here again so take it easy and be the person you want to be – not the unhappy one it is so easy to become.

My best friend, Jimmy, used to say that all the time as a reminder that often we know what is best for us and we just stop doing it.

Meanwhile we expend lots of energy and anxiety trying to find new ways to do what we already know works.

I said “It worked so well I stopped doing it” just today to remind myself that I am still guilty of walking away from doing what I know works.

In this case, I like to stay physically fit.  I have gyms and treadmills in both my Arizona and New Jersey homes.  But when I was away from the equipment on vacation at a rented beach house I had none of that.

I had to rely on what used to work better than all this equipment that I own.  It’s called The Royal Canadian Air Force Fitness Plan – you know, just for the week, right?

I had it right way back then when I couldn’t even afford a treadmill so what I’m saying is – I’ll add the extra goodies in but I’m going back to what worked well for so long that I stopped doing it.

It could be anything.

Or everything.

Do I have any company out there?