Asking for anything can really feel stressful; we could get a no. And yet there’s no better way to really get what we want than by asking. Of course we know the answer is always no if we don’t ask. Jia Jiang, in his TED Talk, What I Learned From 100 Days of Rejection,...
My daughter once said she could tell the degree of my vanity because I never walked by a mirror without looking into it, but then my philosophy was simply mirrors were made for looking, so what. But recently I found a much more pragmatic approach, using the...
Kindness can change any situation, but who has time, right? I’m ashamed to say I’ve spent plenty of time being brusque, abrupt and not very kind, and quite frankly, I don’t feel very good afterwards. And as I’ve started making a concerted effort to do one small...
It’s so easy to take sides, isn’t it? To label or judge when people behave badly (defined as different than I would behave in a similar circumstance) and to take it personally. Especially when it seems aimed right at us. However, a much smarter strategy is to adapt...
Watch what happens when you empathize with someone instead of trying to fix the issue or probe for more information. It can produce an almost instant change in attitude. Empathy means I get what you’re feeling and going through. Empathetic language can sound like...
