A recent poll of 2,000 Americans say men cry an average of four times a month and women only three times.

I’m going to save the psychobabble and tell you about a man I admired for exactly that reason.

My high school Spanish teacher was a 40-something physical specimen, assistant football coach – not someone you’d want to tangle with.

EXCEPT, he was the gentlest man who could be moved to tears in front of men and women when touched.

I so admired him for that – living a life where he defined strength as compassion and gentleness as well as physically strong and determined.

One real life example means more than all the surveys in the world when gender is removed from judging humanity based on emotions.

Teamwork begins with the individual.

5 weak individuals do not make a strong team.

In my role as professor, I was asked this week to submit a grad school recommendation letter for one of my students.

The applicant’s intended university asked me to assess whether the candidate was better as a team member or an individual – pretty tricky.  They even used a sliding scale that I was to use to push in one direction or the other.

I pushed it to the middle because my answer was both and so I am writing this morning to remind all of us that teams only succeed when they consist of talented, hardworking, dedicated individuals.

The same as in sports.

There is strength in numbers and when the players are strong, the team is strong.

I’ve noticed that when I start a new semester all the students in my classes always sit in the same seat that they chose for the very first class.

If it is not available, they will find their original seat the next week when they arrive on time.

But if they tend to always arrive late, they sit in the back.

The front row almost always contains above average students.

• People look for ways to be safe and feel comfortable instead of changing seats and meeting new people.
• Sitting in the back makes it harder to be called on (unless the professor knows that and calls on the back rows first).
• It’s easier to be on your phone and digital devices in the back of the room unless the professor has great vision (I do).

Feeling safe in your comfort zone is a big deal.

Switching things up has its merits, too — you are training the pathways in your brain to take small risks, seek out discovery and meet new people.

Break a routine to discover something or someone new.

If there is something you really want, make it second in a list of three options.

Most people don’t like one thing because it is not a choice.

Two is better, three is best.

Put what you would really want them to choose second in the list.

I learned this from the great radio owner Jerry Lee and put it to work selling ads for my publication Inside Radio.

• The one-year deal was the first option.
• The two-year deal was the third option (it was less expensive than the one-year ad buy).
• The second choice was the one I wanted an advertiser to choose – three years at the best rate.

About 40% of the time by my count, the second option (the one I wanted) was chosen.

People are shrewd:  It’s no choice when there is one or two options just the minimum alternatives, but with three it is your best chance to position what you desire in second place.

And by the way, this works at home and for personal things because any choice is a win-win for all parties but the second one is extra special for you.

Do you start with your best material or save it for the end?

Daniel Kahneman in Thinking Fast and Slow says start big by creating a halo effect that makes you more effective.

Speakers (and even professors) sometimes hold back the best stuff until the end and that would be a mistake.

But start with it and your chance of being successful will be improve.

Even at home with children – lectures don’t work because they’ve likely tuned you out before you can hit them with your best stuff.

In presentations, imagine blowing the audience away with the best you have instead of running the risk of losing them until the end.

Especially in the quick paced digital world in which we live in, go big from the start.

Fake it until you make it. 

Try that and you’ll be exposed as a weak person with no confidence.

Imitating confidence, competence and optimism trains you to simply imitate confidence, competence and optimism.

• Be confident no matter what the outcome.
• Never doubt your own competence – it’s always good enough and probably better.
• Optimism is a choice not a feeling – you control it.

Better than fake it until you make it is — believe until you achieve.

To be accepted is to be included.

Excepted is not included.

Chasing acceptance is like circus elephants following each other in a circle never knowing whether they are following or leading.

Lead, don’t follow – the surest path to acceptance.

Tomorrow gives us hope.

Yesterday gives us information we can use.

Today is the day we get to put yesterday and tomorrow to its best use.

No matter what you think of today’s billionaires shuttling into space, it’s notable that astronaut William Shatner is 90 years old.

How many 90-year-olds do you know who could take a flight into space?

I clip stories about people who do remarkable things as a reminder to never let anyone else’s limitations become mine.

• The 90+ year old who wins a marathon for his age group – over 5 miles and the last time I checked he was unhappy about his time and vowed to improve it next year – now that’s something to think about.
• 11-year old Laurent Simons who in 2021 became the second youngest college graduate in history obtaining a bachelor’s degree in physics, of all things – you see, dreams are not age restricted.
• Mark Zupan, a quadriplegic from a drunk driver and gold medal winning Paralympic medalist in wheelchair rugby, skydiver and main figure in the Oscar nominated movie Murderball let nothing stop him.

Focus on the possible and seemingly impossible to remind yourself how awesome you, too, can be.

Why waste time with can’t.

I don’t know about you but when I was in college, I never thought about whether a person I was dating was a Republican or Democrat.

We didn’t give each other a Rorschach test on climate change, foreign policy, government or the economy before going out.

We were just looking for the good in each other.

In a divided world, we seem to start with conflict at home, at work and with our families.

Looking for points of agreement – not differences — can help overcome areas of disagreement and that is a powerful tool in resolving conflict.

Look for the good in others and the differences will take their proper place.

Once you allow a negative thought to get into your head, it multiples.

• Worry that you won’t live up to your own expectations or those of others that somehow matter to you.
• That you’re not as good as people think you are.
• When the success of others is painful to you because it activates jealousy.

You’re good enough – probably better.

Your expectations (the real ones that matter to you personally) are all that count.

Jealousy is like a smoke alarm warning you to cool down and remember that another person’s success has nothing to do with yours.

Exposing secret fears helps alleviate them.

One of the biggest fears is pressure to attain milestones and feeling like a failure when you don’t achieve them.

If you value work the most and you feel like you are slipping behind, it is a source of great anxiety that infects all areas of life.

Look at life as several compartments – career can be one, personal relationships, and self-fulfillment are two other important ones.

Spread the risk from career to other important areas so what happens at work doesn’t disproportionately ruin your life.

Missing a milestone rarely ever matters to people who refuse to give up.

1. You think everyone else is better than you
2. Going negative before you begin
3. You expect to lose, surprised to win
4. It’s been a long time between pats on the back
5. You’re asking for help from those less qualified than you

People watch how you treat yourself and often treat you the same way.

If you clicked to open this one, you can join me in the everlasting fight against the fear of failure.

We’re human – we worry – sometimes too much.

If you’ve noticed some athletes even premier Olympic athletes cannot perform if they harbor even a minor doubt in their head.

And that doubt doesn’t necessarily have to be about their ability to compete at sports, it may be something lurking inside about another issue.

Proceed when you’re ready.

Pause when you need time.

Fear thought is an emotion caused by the belief that something or someone dangerous is likely to cause pain or a threat.

Forethought is when we consider future risks, accept them and proceed on our timetable.

Failing is not what we fear, it’s the fear itself and that’s where to redirect efforts to overcoming our anxieties.

Let’s be honest, the amount of time you spend with loved ones has nothing to do with the quality of your relationship together.

Couples can use that time to quarrel.

Children can use it to bargain for something else they want.

Dispel the idea that we need more time to improve our relationships.

What we need is living in the present without digital devices and focusing 100% on the other person.

A ten-minute walk when it’s just the two of you is better than a ten-hour trip where no one is focused on each other even though they have “spent a lot of time together”.

Taking the day off is unnecessary when putting your phone away and asking ten questions to your son or daughter is very effective.

Great relationships are a quilt work of thousands of magic moments.

To get better relationships in less time, ask questions, listen intently and hold your opinions.

Name everything you’ve done wrong this week and then everything you’ve done right.

If it was easier conjuring up the wrong, time to change things.

I have my students applaud each other heartily after they present their viewpoints

Positive reinforcement is the key to sustained confidence – congratulate yourself and others because building people up, not tearing them down, increases confidence.

Trying is more important than succeeding

A .250 percentage makes a baseball player lots of money – you don’t need to succeed 100% of the time.

Assume a virtue if you have it not (Shakespeare) 

If you assume your presentation will be effective, it likely will.  If you worry about whether it will, it likely won’t.

Another word for confidence is belief.

If someone you know wants to put you down, it’s their choice.

But don’t help them.

Use it as an opportunity to pat yourself on the back.

Don’t make their jealousies and criticism yours.

Here’s how.

Think of your head as having a memory chip in it.

When people put us down, they not only get direct access to that chip, we then help them put us down by hitting repeat over and over.

No one gets to say anything (not even compliments) directly into our head.

If it’s positive, it stays.

Only we are the ones who can hit repeat.

Those who seek to undermine us are locked out if we recognize the manipulation and refuse to let their comments seep in.

On average Americans check their phones every five-and-a-half minutes or 262 times a day.

Blame code writers who are working overtime to make us stay addicted to serve more ads and keep a lock on engagement time.

FOMO (fear of missing out) drives the addiction.

40% admit to using their phones while driving – I witnessed that first hand leaving NYU on the first day of this semester when a car slammed into me at the Holland Tunnel merge, yes, the driver was on the phone.

That’s interruptions every 5.5 minutes when we work, talk to our kids and spouse, to friends, even when we’re sleeping – check this out.

Schools hand out iPads, the addiction starts.

Parents are caught between child and peers to pressure to let them have a phone.

Every second spent buried in social media or with heads down toward a digital device should be weighed against all that is being given up focused on the now.

Worrying about the future is why we are living in an age of great anxiety caused by anticipating what may not happen.

There are seemingly an endless number of tools to cut down on worry and still it plagues us.

One way to reduce worry is to limit it to what’s in front of you today and not get ahead of yourself.

Worriers are notorious for imagining tomorrow’s doom and gloom today.

Focus on today’s problems which is plenty to deal with.

Forgiving doesn’t mean forgetting.

It doesn’t always mean reconciliation.

You’re not doing it for the other person.

Forgiving is necessary for all healing starting with you.