One of the hardest things in life is to admit that we made a mistake.

I don’t know why that is, but people will go through amazing lengths to avoid having to say these two words – I’m sorry.

Often, it’s all that is necessary to restart the communication process.  So if you have difficulty choking on those two words, here are some alternative and effective ways:

1. Admit the mistake sincerely and briefly describe what you are specifically sorry for.  Often the person on the receiving end prefers this to the words “I’m sorry” because it is a standup way to say what you’re sorry for.
2. Make it up to the person you’ve hurt or wronged first and when you see the positive response, the words “I’m sorry” may not be so difficult.
3. Say you’re sorry by listening.  Often those we’ve offended simply want to be heard.  Once we make a sincere attempt to hear the other person, the right words will flow.

“An apology is the superglue of life.  It can repair just about anything”  — Lynn Johnston

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For years I taught public speaking to all kinds of people only to learn that they would rather die then get up in front of a group.  (By the way, I have seen research that bears this out – death over public speaking).

I’ve seen students run out of the room in fear and not show up again perfectly content to let the fear of speaking overcome them.

But it doesn’t have to be this way.

Here are my very best secrets to overcoming the fear of speaking to more than one person at a time:

1. Talk to a group or a large audience the way you talk to one person.
2. Never memorize the message (believe it or not people do this time and time again setting up the very next opportunity to forget what they were going to say).
3. Be yourself not someone else or your image of another good speaker. 
4. Being loud does not make you a good speaker.  Some of the most compelling orators are ones who speak softly.
5. A pause is your best friend.
6. When you forget what you were going to say, recap something you previously said.  If you can’t remember that, say, “I forgot what I was going to say” and presto it returns – try it.
7. Rehearse three times in front of a mirror and keep time on your smartphone.  Each time I do this it comes out different which is great because the fourth and final time is in front of an audience and they don’t know what the first, second or third rehearsals sounded like.
8. Practice a one line open and a one line close.
9. Never overstay your welcome.  I followed a speaker once who had the audience in the palm of his hands until he couldn’t stop talking.  And he should have known better because he was a television personality.  Leave them wanting more.

Red face?  No problem – you’re just being authentic and authenticity is what we all strive for today.

So next time you have an opportunity to do a presentation or a talk, try these “secrets” and let me know how you do.

“You can conquer almost any fear if you will only make up your mind to do so.  For remember, fear doesn’t exist anywhere except in the mind” – Dale Carnegie

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In school, we learn history, math, social studies and the traditional courses that give us a good education but what we don’t learn is useful information on some of the most important areas of our life.

Marriage and relationships.

How to Succeed.

Human Relations.

And How to Manage Money.

In Post World War II, the nation and the world have become increasingly more prosperous.  We earn more, but make less.

Our salaries are up, but our self-esteem is often down.

We have less vacation time.  More expenses and it sometimes seems as if even when we succeed in our careers, we sometimes fail at life.

Our relationships can be reduced to dinner with the family at a nice restaurant with a spoon, fork and cellphone in our hands.

I like to take a different view of our net worth.

1. We aspire to riches but we should invest in relationships.
2. Doing good for others is worth many times more than the salary that is derived.  Teachers, to cite only one example, are worth their weight in gold many times over.  Wall Street hedge fund managers are worth far less than their over-the-top compensation.
3. Making a difference trumps making a bonus.
4. There is never a good time for giving up the pursuit of your dreams.

To college graduates I like to write:  “It is more important to make a life than to make a living” because it is usually the first time in their four years of education that anyone has told them the truth about what lies ahead.

If we were to list our “financial” assets right next to our “substantial” assets, would we be “rich” or would we be “enriched”?

Take the test today while there is lots of time left.

“The real measure of your wealth is how much you’d be worth if you lost all your money.”

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Over the weekend, an Asiana Boeing 777 plane crash-landed on the runway at San Francisco airport.  Several people were killed and many others injured.

Shortly afterwards, Facebook executive Sheryl Sandberg revealed in a post that she changed her plans at the last minute when returning from Korea in order to earn miles for her family on United.  She was traveling with family and three colleagues from South Korea.

Her United flight landed safely in San Francisco 20 minutes before the Asiana flight crash-landed and burst into flames at the same airport.

Sandberg said she was taking a minute to be thankful after hearing of the disaster that she barely avoided.

We don’t have to wait for a near-tragedy to get the benefits of gratitude:

1. Take a few minutes now to think of people and things we are grateful for
2. Send a “thank you” note, email or text
3. Give someone a hug who needs it
4. Do someone a favor puts words into action
5. And the most challenging way to be grateful:  Say thanks for the bad things in life.  The person who has been mean to you.  The horrible situation you just endured.  For out of bad comes good – always and in all ways.

“A single grateful thought toward heaven is the most perfect prayer” – Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

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One of my readers wrote to say he was discouraged by the bad breaks he has had to endure and that he was giving up.

The Dalai Lama says that life is full of sorrow and that pain is transformational.

It is and out of bad comes good, but what to do in the meantime?  Let’s go to the videotape:

Alexander Graham Bell failed over and over again in his quest to invent what became the telephone.  He advised:  “Sometimes we stare so long at the door that is closing that we see too late the one that is open”.

Walt Disney was a dreamer who had to move heaven and earth (literally) to develop Disneyland and Disney World.  How did he get through it?  “You may not realize it when it happens, but a kick in the teeth may be the best thing in the world for you”.

Christopher Reeve was the handsome actor in Superman who became crippled after falling from a horse.  He could have thrown in the towel but this is what he said instead:  “We can either watch life from the sidelines, or actively participate … Either we let self-doubt and feelings of inadequacy prevent us from realizing our potential, or embrace the fact that when we turn our attention away from ourselves, our potential is limitless”.

There is no escaping hard times but hanging on long enough to reap the reward is the key thought to never forget. 

“When you get into a tight place and everything goes against you, till it seems as though you could not hang on a minute longer, never give up then, for that is just the place and time that the tide will turn” – Harriet Beecher Stowe

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Marvin Windows and Doors is a family-owned company that made it through the recession without laying anyone off. 

And recently, they gave their employees – all of them – their first profit-sharing checks in four years.  Each one of their 2,573 employees got a check for $311.

Marvin Windows and Doors valued their employees over profits.

They did it by cutting back hours for hourly workers, did away with some perks, cut salaried employee salaries including top executives and even family members.  They made these moves to break even until things got better.

And all this wasn’t done to just be nice guys.  They saw it as giving Marvin Windows and Doors a competitive advantage allowing them to keep experienced workers as competitors were getting rid of theirs.

This is a feel good story and in a time of venture capital, greedy Wall Street and a changing world economy, it is heartening to remember that taking the road less traveled renews our faith in businesses that put people first.

“It’s a recession when your neighbor loses his job; it’s a depression when you lose your own” – Harry S. Truman

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Work is a major source of stress for 65% of adults according to a new survey by the American Psychological Association.

The numbers don’t lie.

39% blame too heavy a workload.  33% blame the demands of work for interfering with family or personal time.  There are salary issues.  Advancement issues and workplace stressors. 

Life today is stressful. 

Millennials are thought to be the most stressed out generation because of their addiction to constant mobile connection, entering the workplace as jobs are disappearing and their own personal penchant for not giving up on chasing their dreams.

So what to do?

In addition to the common stress relievers (relaxation techniques, exercise, mind over matter), there are these:

1. Retrain the brain.  Our pathways change for better or worse as we adopt certain behaviors so a major effort should be made to literally rethink the way we confront and deal with stress because there is a definitive neurological connection that programs our brain.
2. Laughter.  None other than Mayo Clinic recommends it.  We’re getting so technical about how to relieve stress that we forget the best solution of all – a good laugh.  Forward thinking companies, the kind that Millennials yearn to work for such as Google make play and playfulness part of the workday.
3. Under commit and over deliver in family and personal matters.  We try to make up to loved ones for the time we work and the stress that results by overcommitting.  We have the capability of removing that stress which then allows us to over deliver to the ones closest to us.  And then we do it stress free.

“It’s not stress that kills us, it is our reaction to it” 
– Hans Selye

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It really isn’t possible to think yourself out of being a worrier. 

In fact, it may make you worry even more.

That’s not to say reading or learning about how to conquer fear and worry isn’t a good beginning.  But no one ever thought their way out of what is eating us alive from inside out.

The secret is to take action.

One-step at a time.  From the time we wake up to the time we go to bed.  And it’s doable.

Dale Carnegie always said that he had 50% of his worries vanish once he came up with a clear, definitive decision about what was bothering him.  And another 40% vanished when he started to carry out that decision.

This is pure gold for worriers.

Banish 90% of your fears by taking these four steps:

1. Writing down precisely what you are worried about.
2. Writing down what you can do about it.
3. Deciding what to do.
4. Starting immediately to carry out that decision.

“Do the thing you fear to do and keep on doing it…that is the quickest and surest way ever yet discovered to conquer fear” – Dale Carnegie

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We’ve been hearing it for years now, the next generation is self-absorbed.

Correction:  All generations are becoming more self-absorbed.

The latest issue of Newsweek has a cover story about “The ‘Me, Me, Me’ Wedding” about how America is exporting its bridezilla culture.

You don’t have to hear it from me – people are more self-absorbed than ever.  It makes life tough for anyone on the other end of such behavior.

Two things.

One, no need to suffer from people who are not interested in you.  The antidote is to show interest in them.  It’s good human relations and the person who can practice effective human relations with others is still happier, more promotable, and a cherished friend.

Two, it is not necessary to compete with others for attention.  When we become comfortable in our own shoes, we are less vulnerable to the attention grabbing techniques of self-absorbed people and more content.

“I recognize that I have the ability to be selfish, but I also recognize that you can’t be happy if you only care about yourself at the expense of other people” – Russell Brand

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A 26-year old girl was interviewed on a New York City radio station a few weeks ago.

She has brain cancer.

The disease has been in remission but it has returned.  While she battles the disease she says that despite her youth, she is aware of the diminishing time she has left.

She asked her doctor what she should do now that the disease is back and his reply was to do whatever she wants to do.

This brave young lady has discovered the real meaning of living every day to its fullest.

What is our excuse?

After hearing her testimony, I can’t think of any reason to waste another moment, day, year or life not doing what you want to do.

It isn’t the number of years; it is the quality of the years.

It isn’t the regrets but the satisfaction.

There are lots of things that can’t be controlled in life but one of the things that can is our ability to grab the next day and live it to the fullest.

In the case of this brain cancer patient, she has no choice.

For everyone else, it is the choice we must make.

“Life is a terminal condition.  We’re all going to die.  Cancer patients just have more information, but we all, in some ways, wait for permission to live” – Kris Karr

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Danny Briere, the Philadelphia Flyers hockey player, had hoped to play out his long contract with the teammates he loves in a city that he has embraced and that has embraced him.

Little did he know when he signed with the team that there would someday be a new NHL collective bargaining agreement that would make it accretive for some teams to buy out expensive players like Briere and reduce their salary cap.

The Flyers don’t want him to go to a competitor but they can’t afford not to take the $6 million salary cap expense off their books.

For Briere, the single father who shares custody of three young boys, he has had months to speculate and hope that it wouldn’t come to this.  But how Briere has handled fate is textbook for the rest of us.

He’s been decisive – the kids stay in their home in Haddonfield, NJ outside of Philadelphia to continue their education.

They and he must accept that he will not be there during the hockey season – he’ll visit instead.

He’s likely to sign a short contract with another nearby east coast team and who knows, maybe he returns to the Flyers.  (The collective bargaining agreement forbids the team taking a buyout from also then resigning the player for a period of one year).

Briere hoped against hope.

Accepted fate.

Showed gratitude by warmly thanking the fans.

And did what we must all do when faced with change.

“I have no regrets … I’m moving forward” – Danny Briere

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I don’t know about you, but I have already heard so many “keys” to success in my life that there isn’t a “key” chain big enough to hold them all.

I’m not saying I haven’t heard some very good ones, but I’ve never heard the one killer thing that can always guarantee success.

All that has changed.

Let me give you two examples.

At the recent US Open Golf Tournament, the winner was the 32-year-old British golfer named Justin Rose who when he was a teen missed the cut in his first 21 professional golf tournaments. 

He had never won a PGA “major”. 

But on that day, Father’s Day, Rose prevailed and overcame his previous mistakes, a tough golf course and the missteps of competitors.  Upon winning, Rose looked to the heavens in a salute to his father.

And there is Lionel Shriver, the controversial but very successful author who couldn’t get arrested by a publishing company.  Her first book, We Need To Talk About Kevin was rejected by 20, 30, 40 … even more publishers who wouldn’t take it.  Finally HarperCollins took a chance.

Shriver didn’t beat herself up. 

She didn’t reinvent herself.

She didn’t throw the book away and try something else.

She stuck with it, prevailed until she succeeded.

Like Rose, the golfer, who put his head down and kept playing. 

No excuses.

No discouragement. 

No quiting allowed.

My friends, the one indispensible secret to success is to never quit, never give up chasing the dream and never, ever be talked out of your success.

“You can win it in the late innings, if you never quit” – Robert Forster

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78% of 2,698 people in a VitalSmarts survey report an increase of rudeness online.

Rudeness and insulting behavior are ending friendships and two out of five social media users have cut off contact after an online fight. One in five have reduced face-to-face contact after an online altercation.

Manners lag behind technology and with 67% of online adults now using social media (Pew Study) this is becoming a problem.

Some of the survey respondents said they were still not talking to family members after two years after a fight that resulted from posting an embarrassing photo of a man’s sister when the instigator refused to remove it and in fact sent it to all his contacts for spite.

When people talk about workplace associates on social media, it invariably gets back to the subjects.

There are ways to play nice and play it safe at the same time:

1. When you feel a conversation is getting too emotional to be out there online, it’s time to take it face-to-face.
2. From VitalSmarts:  three rules that could improve conversations online were to avoid monologues, replace lazy, judgmental words, and cut personal attacks particularly when emotions were high.
3. Don’t hit send if what you send cannot be read before a jury in a court of law – this one works for me every time because it forces one to think about how a third party might perceive what is being said.
4. When it doubt, leave it out.

Increasingly our lives are online and on social media sites, there is no Emily Post yet but there is emerging “netiquette”.

“Everything I think of now is too rude to actually say” – Craig Ferguson

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That 84-year old Florida grandmother who won a $590 million Powerball jackpot recently is taking a lump sum settlement of $370 million due to her age.

That ought to buy a lot of happiness, right?

It’s not starting out that way.  The young, gracious woman who let Gloria MacKenzie ahead of her because she didn’t want to see an old woman standing in line too long is getting nothing for her consideration.

What’s worse, she was buying tickets for an office pool and her fellow workers are not too happy.

Of course, even if the winner didn’t get to cut ahead, there is no guarantee the good Samaritan would have won the jackpot – tickets are sold from a main computer by the split second. 

All of this highlights the reality that most people who win large lottery jackpots wind up destitute.  Now, that wouldn’t make a good TV commercial, but it is true.

People change when they have so much money and those around them change as well.  The winner often winds up the loser; sometimes homeless and without a penny left as incredible as it may seem.

But one sure way to hit the jackpot is to take a gamble on your ability to follow your dream.

It’s a sure thing and it is far more rewarding in the long run.

“Forget the lottery.  Bet on yourself instead” – Brian Koslow

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Once we fail, we understandably protect ourselves against more failure.

This can be an unintended consequence of self-preservation but what it is not is a good way to succeed.

We have human potential every day. 

Endless possibilities are out there at all times.

And we have to put it out there at all times to succeed.

When I taught the Dale Carnegie Course I used to lead a chorus of chants with class members that included the phrase “act enthusiastic and you’ll be enthusiastic”.

Why?  Because we can’t think ourselves into enthusiasm.  We have to do it first and feel it as a consequence of taking action.

The same is true of success.

If we disregard the fear of failure. 

Push forward with abandon. 

Chase our dreams. 

Let no one stop us. 

Settle for nothing less than fearlessness, we automatically succeed whether we attain our specific goal at the time or not.

To live this life to the fullest, we must live this life to the fullest.

“The man (person) who goes farthest is generally the one who is willing to do and dare” – Dale Carnegie

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Perhaps you like The Haggler who writes in The New York Times as much as I do.

The column takes up for the often tough fights by ordinary consumers to get satisfaction from companies that have wrong them.

The other day, something caught my eye that I want to share with you.  It was one of the most effective ways to show your dissatisfaction with a product or service without having to turn yourself into something you don’t want to be.

The Haggler unsuccessfully tried to get the attention of DailyCandy and turned to his Twitter account.  He sent a post asking for someone to help.  

No one ever replied.

Then, as an experiment, The Haggler turned to Twitter and tried the same thing with a company he had no complaint with but that had a good reputation for customer service.

He also changed his approach.

The Haggler tweeted the following:

“I am not happy with Quicken Loans! And you can tell because I used an exclamation point!

No shouting.  No obscenities.  No threats or boorish behavior.

The response came within hours:  “How can I help?”

True, you have to be dealing with a company that cares, but the fastest way to complain about a consumer issue is to be honest, direct and public in your request for attention.

“It’s not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change” – Charles Darwin

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A new Harris Poll Happiness Index indicates that Americans are not as happy today as we were just two years ago.

Minorities, the disabled and college grads were less happy than they were previously.  Only a third of the poll said they were “very happy”.

It could be the job market.  Or the sequester or for that matter political issues like immigration.  Women were happier than men (35% vs. 32%).  Independents (32%) were not has happy as Democrats and Republicans (35%).

What is happiness?

One of the best definitions I have ever seen is from Martin Seligman, a well-known researcher in positive thinking and author of Authentic Happiness.  He says it comes in three parts:

1. Pleasure (the “feel good” stuff)
2. Engagement (“good life” or work, family, friends and hobbies)
3. Meaning (using our strengths to contribute to a larger purpose)

Of the three, engagement and meaning are the most important to living a happy life.

Sometimes it takes a roadmap to find where we want to go.

“Happiness is not something ready made.  It comes from your own actions” – The Dalai Lama

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Quicken Loans, one of the most lauded new age companies for customer service teaches their employees that “clients don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care”.

That is awesome advice not just for business but also for personal relationships.

Too often we care but we don’t show it.

We care, but we don’t say it.

Imagine how our lives would be different from today on if we adopted the mantra, “first, show you care” before we try to persuade, dissuade, sell, ask or anything else for that matter.

Dale Carnegie always said his human relations principles are worth nothing if they are not applied sincerely and the same goes for this.

So, try it today.

Do no asking or telling until you show you care.

“Nobody cares how much you know, until they know how much you care” — Theodore Roosevelt

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Arguments often degenerate into a poorly run debate in which each side sees their goal as trumping the other person’s previous claim.

My mother used to say, “You can never talk a person out of their politics” and was she ever right.

In fact, we may not be able to convince anybody that our position is the right one on many other things.

So, change strategies.

The best way to get someone to listen to our point of view is to acknowledge right up front that we heard something they said that opposes what we believe.

Most people argue to be heard so if we can somehow communicate, “message received” they are more likely to hear us.

Arguments can turn into shouting matches, insults and hard feelings so the goal is to make sure the other person is heard before we speak.

And to be realistic.

You don’t have to “win” an argument; you just have to make your case because if you become the “winner” somebody has to lose.

The best way to win an argument is to avoid it.

The best way to communicate your feelings, thoughts or ideas is to acknowledge the other person’s comments first.

“No one can persuade another to change.  Each of us guards a gate of change that can only be opened from the inside.  We cannot open the gate of another, either by argument or emotional appeal” – Marilyn Ferguson

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Researchers from Washington State University analyzed a billion tweets during American sporting events including the 2013 Super Bowl and discovered that being confident makes you more popular than being right.

What’s worse is that the louder or more confident the tweets sounded, the more trustworthy and popular they were.

I know this is Twitter, but Twitter imitates life these days.

In life, the loud, confident person looks like they know what they are talking about even if they are all wet.

So the question is:  should we act more confident and speak in louder tones to make people believe us and like us?

First, a thought.

What if we were louder, sounded more confident AND knew what we were talking about?

And that’s the secret to being a persuasive person.

All style and no substance is a dead end.

Before trying to persuade another, make sure you have a legitimate argument that can be substantiated.

“To be persuasive we must be believable; to be believable we must be credible; credible we must be truthful” – Edward R. Murrow

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