The captain is not the last person to go down with the ship.

We know this from forensic evidence of vessels that have sunk.

In fact, the captain is among the first to abandon ship preceded only by the crew.

Unlike passengers the crew is trained on how to survive at sea.

Yes, the women were left to save themselves only followed by – believe it or not – the children.

This does not mean that everyone jumps overboard. There are occasional tales of heroic and selfless actions that have saved others at the expense of their own lives.

No matter how much you trust others whether earned or imagined, always be prepared in life to depend on yourself.

Not the person who promises a promotion.

Or the friend who insists they will be there for you no matter what.

If you’re that fortunate, be grateful.

Otherwise prepare every day by learning to count on the most dependable person you know – you.

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Students learn less when they use a laptop or tablet to take notes in class and presentations.

And their grades are worse than those who do not use these note taking aids.

They distract users from receiving the message and distract those around them.

This spells trouble in corporate meeting rooms and at presentations where digital devices are standard equipment.

The people who look like they are trying to absorb the most from the content presentation are actually hurting themselves.

In random tests at Princeton and UCLA, students who used pen and paper outperformed the digital note takers.

Some professors discourage or outright ban the use of laptops and tablets because smartphones can take pictures of handwritten notes that can be stored later on a student’s computer.

The point is – access to information and ease of absorbing such information is turning about to be secondary to focusing on the content in real time and thinking about it.

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People tend to cling to memories of the past as they become older or even as they experience success at a younger age.

Memories are made of successes and while they feel good to reflect on, they feel even better in real time going forward.

Do, don’t stew.

Start something new — don’t just review past successes.

Engage someone new – a person you don’t normally contact, spend time with or have a dialogue with.  Start one.  One new outreach a day, brings 365 potential people some of whom can enrich your life (and you theirs).  It only takes one.

Life is like a concert.

We enjoy songs from the past but we also appreciate brand new lyrics and beats – preferably together in a nice balance.

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Dale Carnegie says the only way to get the best of an argument is to avoid it.

For those caught up in their own or someone else’s drama, these steps are helpful:

• Listen – Listening helps eliminate the feeling of self-defense that is triggered when another person is coming at you in an argument.  Showing that you are attempting to listen and understand is the first line of defense.
• Acknowledge the argument – Being able to repeat the other person’s complaint is proof that you are listening even if you do not agree.
• Support the argument – Supporting the other person’s right to disagree helps pave the way for your right to have your own – differing – opinion.

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Step 1 – Write down your top 25 career goals

Step 2 – Circle only your top 5 options

Step 3 – Put the top 5 on one list and the other 20 on a second list

Then give the top 5 list all your attention and avoid at all costs the second list until you’ve succeeded with the top 5.

This concept also works for daily to-dos.

Step 1 – Write down your tasks for the day

Step 2 – Circle only your top 5

Step 3 – Put the top 5 important tasks on one list

Give all your attention to that list until they are completed and then you can add more.

Multi-tasking is a myth that studies prove does not produce more efficiency and does create more anxiety.

Focus your time and energy on things that matter most.

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Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan agreed in writing in a “relationship agreement” before they were married to spend 100 minutes of alone time with each other each week away from work.

Rapper Jay-Z and singer/wife Beyonce have a pre-nup in which she earns $5 million for each child they have together. It’s not the money. They are worth over $1 billion together. It’s about placing yet another value on becoming a parent.

Actress Nicole Kidman and singer Keith Urban have a pre-nup in which Urban gets $600,000 for every year he remains narcotics and alcohol free.

Jessica Biel receives $500,000 if Justin Timberlake cheats. They are worth $248 million together.

This is not about the money. It’s about goals.

When goals are clearly stated whether they are in “relationship agreements”, pre-nuptials, employment contracts or even Valentine “I Love You cards”, they have the best chance of success.

Imagine trying to solve a problem without stating specifically what the problem is.

Goals cannot be reached unless they are assigned a value and committed in a document as a blueprint for success.

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Do it sooner than promised.

Exceed expectations.

If you buy a product from Apple on back order, they always promise a drop-dead date that they will exceed.

When my new iPhone arrives weeks ahead of that date, Apple makes me happy to be spending more money than you probably should.

Your son will be happy when you not only keep a promise but double down on it.

Do something sooner than promised for a spouse or partner.

Your boss will be elated if you deliver the project ahead of schedule and better than expected.

No need to take courses on how to win friends when the answer is looking right at us.

Be first.

Be fast.

Be sooner than expected. 

An early New Year’s resolution all of us would be wise not to break.

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Burger King did an amazing video in which they bullied a Whopper and more people came to the defense of the burger than they did on people who were getting bullied in one of their restaurants.

Over 3 million people have seen this video.

It shows the importance of speaking up.

95% reported the Whopper being bullied and far fewer would stand up for a person on the receiving end of insults.

To fight bullying, speak up.

See something.

Say something.

Bullying is not okay and it can’t persist if we speak up about it.

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Most of us know what we want but spend a lot of valuable time and effort talking ourselves out of it.

If you know what you want, hit the Start Button today.

A new job? 

Within the hour, start the ball rolling.

Want out of a toxic relationship?  

Draw the line now and don’t back off.

Spend more time with the family?

Go home tonight, turn the phone off and do several things you have not had the time to do together.

Unhappy?

Before the day is done, book an appointment with a counselor and start real change.

Feel guilty?

Forgive yourself but don’t forget what you have to work on.

Resentful and bitter?

Let it go today before the resentment you despise becomes part of you.

See the Start Button in your mind’s eye and use it often to bring about real change.

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There is no shortcut to success and happiness.

Look at all those “poor” lottery winners who wind up broke and friendless after thinking they got “lucky”.

The new lucky is adversity.

From adversity, we test how deeply we really want something – how hard we are willing to work for it.  If there is a point where we give up, then we didn’t want it that badly after all.

That’s as valuable as knowing what we want and what we don’t want.

By having to spend years or even a lifetime in pursuit of what we want, we guarantee that we will eventually make our own good luck.

Often what we want is not really what we want.

All I ever wanted to be was a radio program director and spent many years enjoying that career.  But adversity called me to a broader canvas where I could have an even greater impact and reward.

Who knew?

Time allows us to know ourselves.

Test ourselves.

And discover the biggest lesson of success:

Adversity introduces a person to him or herself and to those around them

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We’re developing a fear of the phone.

We resent voicemail messages.

Answer calls with a text or email instead of a return call.

Pour our hearts out to Apple Mail or Outlook, but can’t look into the eyes of the person our feelings are intended for.

Phone calls eat valuable time – or so that is the excuse.

Entire lives are being conducted on social media, chat and email without the benefit of hearing a human response.

If you were to die tomorrow, would the people who care about you wish they could have just one more email from you or would they long for the sound of your voice?

Social media is not a substitution for calls and in person contact.

Fear of confronting others, revealing our thoughts and feelings and replacing them with emoji’s and incomplete phrases can be treated.

The phone is a tool.  Texting is an aid.  Social media is the dessert, not the meal.

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Most relationships are and have been broken at some point.  It’s the way we deal with them that makes the difference.

When a relationship has been breached, work to objectively find out the specific reason.

Spending time and effort to fix something that is not the problem breeds further resentment.

Families go through ups and downs but they have a magic staying power that keeps members together even in difficult times.

The magic formula for fixing broken relationships:

1. Be certain you know the “problem” and be able to articulate it with the other person.
2. Spend all efforts on the recognized problem with great focus and hard work.  

Fixing broken relationships can actually strengthen them and you, as an individual.

What’s worth having may be worth the price to focus on it for the rest of your life.

But that decision is a personal one.

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Acknowledging others takes so little effort and requires no special skills and yet it is a powerful way to win friends and inspire interaction.

So why don’t we do it?

We’re turned inward looking down at phones and navigating the black hole of social media where it is easy to get lost and miss the world around us.

Ways to acknowledge people:

• Smile without doing anything else
• Pay a compliment
• Show a courtesy (“please, go first”, “you’ve been waiting, step ahead of me”)
• Put your phone away and start a conversation
• Offer to help

People want no more than to be acknowledged.

And if you thought I was referring only to strangers (above), go through the bulleted points again and see how they can apply to friends, family members and associates.

To be a powerful person, engage in the skill of recognizing them in real time.

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The average white-collar worker spends a whopping 6 hours a day on email according to an Adobe workplace survey.

And that’s without counting other distractions – just straight email time.

Focus is the skill you want to excel in the workplace and outperform others.  The person who can eliminate attention leaks is likely to be the most employable.

Ways to cut off attention leaks:

• Turn off notifications – You’ll just keep going with distractions if you see them pop up all the time on devices.
• Too much information hurts – We become overcome with too much information and anything additional tends to slip away from our brains – a good reason not to keep bombarding yourself with information of all kinds while trying to work.
• Multitasking is an attention leak – More useful is to prioritize the 20% of what you have to do which will bring you 80% of your productivity.  Do less to accomplish more and plug the attention leaks.
• Limit focused time – Pick a time period – say an hour – when you can focus on your work, plug attention leaks and minimize the flow of too much information.  Then take a break.
• Don’t think – When I face a problem, I try to erase everything and keep the mind blank and sure enough the answer rises to the top effortlessly.

Attention can be cultivated but without exercise, it becomes inefficient and non-productive.

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They talk endlessly about themselves almost as if you don’t exist.

When you do talk, they lose focus.

They emphasize with themselves not others.

1. Cut off the oxygen.  Your attention is their oxygen.
2. If they don’t ask about you, why continue to feed their self-absorption.
3. They get no pass even if they are family members.  Even being in the same room or same chat with a person who makes it all about them is you encouraging them to continue.
4. Reward people who focus on you by asking them questions about them or as it used to be called “a conversation”.

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If you win all the time, you are likely to head for a losing streak.

And that’s okay because winners are people who take their failures and turn them into the art of succeeding.

You’ve seen a sports team that gets so far ahead in the score that they become lax allowing their competitor to catch up – scare them or beat them.

People who seem to be born with all the breaks who when finally hit with adversity don’t know how to handle it.

Winning is more fun but losing is the rehearsal for another victory.

It helps introduce you to the people around you and to the adversity you’re facing.

Hope for the best.

But when faced with the worst know that out of bad always come good.

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1. “Best” List — Make a list of the things that you are the best at.   Only your top traits.
2. Work in Progress — Compile a list of things that erode your confidence because they are things you are not feeling good about.
3. Review success constantly — Create a “notes” file on your phone to record daily accomplishments and victories that you have.  Scroll through that list often.  Latest accomplishment on top.
4. Permanent accomplishments — The things no one can ever take away from you – getting into the college of your choice, winning a promotion (even if you wind up leaving the job later), things that other people can never know because they are so personal like overcoming an addiction (even if you regress at a later date).  Permanent accomplishments should never be forgotten because you earned them and they count towards your self-esteem.

People who lack confidence have no shortage of successes.  They just focus on failure too much.

Getting your confidence from the words of others is transient.

Recognizing the things you do well and the improvements you make on the things you could do better is permanent.

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The best use of social media is to limit your involvement with it.

Tristan Harris, the former Google code writer and now advocate for people to reign in the “black hole” of social media, says it’s a time waster that draws you further and further away from focusing on the present.

• Relegate social media to the 2^nd page of your phone screen – And store it in a folder.  That way the next time you use Facebook, Instagram, SnapChat or other networks, you have to specifically go open it up.  Having it on the first screen and easily available is too much temptation.
• Set a timer – Five minutes can easily become 25 minutes because of the addicting nature of following, liking and spying.  Set an alarm for social media time.
• Match social media time with real time – If you spend 20 minutes on Facebook, spend a comparable 20 minutes face-to-face or talking on the phone to a real breathing human being.
• Invest the “saved” time in friends – Controlling social media use will result in extra time that can be spent with family, friends or loved ones who are all around you.

Harris, the code writer, reminds us that Google and other purveyors of social networking have one goal — getting users to spend more time on social media so they can serve more ads.

A good reminder when looking for the courage to cut back and return to the present.

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Thanksgiving is such a simple holiday that is often packed with emotional upheaval from families that come together and are forced to confront hard feelings and raw pent up emotions.

Retailers are beginning to rename Thanksgiving “Thanksgifting” and encouraging customers to start early and “thank yourself”.

The gift that is most appropriate for that one day is gratitude.

Some recipes for success:

• Keep the focus on gratitude and when someone uncovers sore points in the family dynamic, just be thankful that you have a family.  Many people do not.
• Thank the host.  Fewer people each year prepare a feast and if you’re fortunate enough to be invited to one, start dinner with a toast to the preparer.
• Remember those who are no longer present.  Say their names, say a line or two about why you miss them.
• Family doesn’t have to be perfect — few are.  Even if you cannot get along with a family member, keep returning to gratitude.  The homeless do not have the luxury of enjoying the warmth of a meal with family no matter if someone in the family tries to ruin it.

The gift to give yourself is gratitude and there are many ways to remind yourself of it on Thanksgiving Day.

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New research suggests that as the brain gets hooked on cellphone technology, the mind weakens.

• We check our phones 80 times a day — According to stats that Apple keeps.
• That’s 30,000 times a year! – Far more than anything humans do so it is no surprise that the smartphone usages directly affects intelligence.
• Phones shape our thoughts when we’re not using them – As the brain grows dependent on technology, the intellect becomes weaker.
• Even one ring or a vibrate starts a path of distraction that makes it hard to focus.  This delays reasoning and performance.  Just one ring – even when we don’t look at the phone – starts this process.
• Blood pressure and pulse quickens – Just hearing a ring or vibrate sound and we are unable to respond according to a study of iPhone users.
• The argument for hiding your phone – A study of undergrads at The University of California San Diego shows test takers did worse when their phones were within view and students who left their phones in a different room did best.  As the phones proximity increased, brainpower decreased. 

The dumbing down didn’t just apply to intellect.

Social skills and relationships are adversely affected because they are a reminder of all the people we can connect with electronically and it distracts.

Smart move:  reign in smartphone use for its many benefits and take seriously its disadvantages that over time can be very concerning.

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