• Replace “I’m sorry” with “thank you”.
• You’re seen as strong and successful whenever you resist the urge to apologize to co-workers or bosses.

• You know the saying that a person’s best friend is an animal and there is no doubt that they can be loyal friends – consider those affected by PTSD who feel comforted by an animal they can trust, love and feel safe with.
• And isn’t that the definition of a true friend not just an acquaintance?
• People bring joy, diversity and companionship into our lives but asking more of them is often more than most people can provide.
• Practice self-compassion in order to recognize it in others.

• Anyone in radio or television can tell you that while what they do for a living requires them to be upbeat and positive when on-the-air, they’re human and don’t always feel that way.
• When I taught the Dale Carnegie Course, we used to remind learners to “act enthusiastic and you’ll be enthusiastic” – the action comes before the thought.
• Take a timeout here and see if you can think yourself into a better mood.
• As my radio and TV friends will attest to, they have little job security and you can get fired on a dime for nothing or by someone who isn’t even sober at the time.
• I’m aware of an air talent who was fired on the day before vacation and then asked to do their show before leaving the keys under the bosses’ door – you couldn’t tell from what went out over the air because the person was even more enthusiastic when the mic was open.
• The fix for a bad mood is act happier until the natural motivation catches up with you.

• The opposite of “not sure” is “not unsure” even though both phrases describe uncertainty.
• It’s like “partly cloudy” and “partly sunny” – decades ago chambers of commerce everywhere were pushing local media outlets to go with the more positive weather forecast wording even though the actual result they were forecasting was the same.
• When in doubt, choose “I’m not unsure” over “not sure” when faced with a goal and put that optimism to work for you.

• Humans are driven to please constantly feeling pressure in work and social situations to be good enough or at the very least not to disappoint.
• That’s backwards – there is a better way.
• All that anyone can ever expect is that you will make the best effort possible – they don’t have the right to set goals that in the end wind up affecting self-worth.
• Expect the effort not the ability to define the result.

• The impossible is done not when others believe it’s possible, but when you believe it.
• The possible becomes impossible when you allow someone else to determine the outcome.
• Believers are always on autopilot – they don’t have to feel success in order to pursue it.
• “With confidence, you have won before you have started.” —Marcus Garvey, activist and orator

• The person I detested most as my boss taught me more than all the others put together that I liked.
• It was the only time I was unhappy in a broadcasting job – and if you’re wondering, I tolerated this person for several difficult years.
• I look back on that period now as a sort of boot camp – I survived, made the grade, improved beyond all expectations and left far more qualified than I arrived – I have been honing the skills I learned since.
• Just as no one wants to spend a career in boot camp, it reminds me that sometimes we’re in uncomfortable situations that can be unpleasant, but in the end not without eventual benefit.

•  A stop-loss order is an order placed with a broker to buy or sell a stock once that stock reaches a certain price to limit an investor’s loss (setting a stop-loss for 10% lower than the price at which you bought the stock will limit any losses to 10%).
• The same is true of troubles – spend time to ask just how much anxiety or damage to your health is a problem actually worth to you.
• When you hit those parameters, unload the problem to help mitigate the losses to you personally.
• Most people needlessly hang on to troubles that would be better off dismissed.

• Celebrate the friend you see in your mirror – the person who is compassionate, cares, never gives up and is dependable and trustworthy, someone safe and always accepting.
• Looking elsewhere for what you want is virtually an impossible task.
• The more you work on and appreciate yourself, the more others are attracted to you for all the right reasons.

• It strikes me that life is a lot like Scrabble.
• Every once in a while, it pays to dump all your unusable letters and start over.
• Dumping troubles that have plagued you and sopped up energy allows for a rebuild not just a work around.
• The best question ever on worry is what price are you willing to pay to hang on to your worries.

• As a radio program director, I always advised my airstaff to constantly be in forward motion – that is, when a song is over move on to what’s next because it creates momentum and anticipation.
• You don’t go back to generate enthusiasm, you go forward which has strong applications in other areas of life.
• Living in the present is a proven formula to be happy and looking forward is the chief way to plan ahead.

• It’s rarely what you say or how likeable you are that wins new friends.
• It’s the way they make you feel about yourself.
• Listening to others and asking questions (not talking about yourself) is the first step in making people feel good in your presence.

If you see someone without a smile, give them one of yours.
— Dolly Parton

• Without one word spoken, a smile can make your inner power grow. 
• The ability to smile almost always elicits a positive reaction in return (and yes, it works with a mask on because your eyes tell the story of approval and acceptance). 
• You’ve given yourself a gift as well – smiling at others upgrades your mood instantly.

• One of my favorite authors is Amit Sood, MD, the former Mayo Clinic professor of medicine who wrote a guide to stress-free living
• “When you stop judging others, you feel better about yourself and less judged by them.”
• “Ask yourself: Is it really wrong? None of the 88 keys in a piano is wrong. Each key plays a unique tone that sounds perfect if played well and in the right place within the concerto.  Within limits, try to see others’ behaviors as different tones.”
• “A tone that doesn’t sound right in your song isn’t a bad tone. Perhaps you didn’t play it well or it doesn’t fit in your music.”

• My NYU students and I have a deal – they turn their phones and devices off during each one hour and forty-minute class to focus on discussions and I allow them to leave the room (without dirty looks or any form of chastisement) to check their messages if they like during class.
• The majority stay seated, perhaps 20% at most check their phones or use the bathrooms.
• And when I asked them this past week how difficult it is to sit there and not look at their phones, the typical response was they liked it.
• People know too much connectivity breeds distraction so the way to win the battle is to make phone use a win-win.

• Take all the successes of the past week – great and small, throw in some winners from the past month and year and replay them over and over instead of rerunning everything you perceived (or others have told you) you are doing wrong.
• If you don’t think this is possible, it is exactly what most of us do with our faults.
• We have no problem knowing what they are and yet we make them the soundtrack of our inner thoughts.
• Eliminate the negatives, accentuate the positives.
• If you have trouble, put your victories on your phone or digital device and scroll through them as a reminder that you have confidence in reserve.

• Many people are more concerned with being liked by others and one reason for this is the proliferation of social media which emphasizes “friends’, “likes” and “follows”.
• Being liked by others starts with liking yourself – if you can’t like you, how can you ask someone else to?
• And there’s always lots to like because we’re not just made up of faults and inadequacies pointed out by others, we’ve got our strengths and we should at least give them equal time in our mind.
• Act like the person you want to become and others will stand in admiration.

• Most people are waiting for you to be first to reach out and break the ice – be that person.
• Someone new, a person you may have neglected or to repair a relationship that is worth reigniting.
• Believe it or not in a classroom of students, most never meet more than one or two people and not even that if they take the class with a friend.
• Break the ice because the rewards outweigh the risks.

• “Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept no one’s definition of your life; define yourself” – Robert Frost

• One of my students asked me how I got into television and radio and during our chat  I confessed that I was very shy as a child – a fact I rarely talk about because people who know me today laugh when I say it.
• I told her that I rehearsed in my mind over and over again what I wished I could do someday on camera and in front of a mic.
• One day, those opportunities arrived and I was more than ready which brought me to my point.
• Some of the most significant progress is made in private when we are liberated from the expectations of others and free to be ourselves.
• “I restore myself when I am alone. A career is born in public – talent in privacy” – Marilyn Monroe.