She was just so exhausting that by the time the weekend was over my daughter and I just wanted quiet and solitude. My daughter turned to me after we’d left her and said, “Now do you see why I think you’re so pushy.” What she was talking about was my style in DISC; I’m...

When I read these lines, it reminds me of how often in the past I used to go around in a half-awake stupor, doing what I had to do just to get through the day. And what a waste of precious time it was; I wasn’t brave or confident enough to see what mattered to me, and...

“I am not what happened to me. I am what I choose to become.”    Carl Jung Author Chris Voss, in his great book Never Split the Difference, talks about his favorite F word: Fair. He explains companies can often use it in negative, manipulative...

Don’t be tempted to give away your happiness and joy this Thanksgiving by being upset with anything, regardless of what is happening around you. If you start to get frustrated with the way other people drive, go through security at an airport, talk in a...

When I taught at Microsoft years ago, I remember being surprised to hear again and again from the group I was teaching that they were being encouraged to fail. Not purposely, but to take chances, take risks, and realize failure was a necessary step toward...

“Whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re right”  Henry Ford We’ve all read that quote from Henry Ford, and we’ve all heard story after story of people who believed they could, or couldn’t do something, and proved their beliefs were reality....

He wags his tail all the time, even while sleeping. His happy attitude is not contingent on treats, toys,praise or fun, he’s just a consummate tailwagger. He’s a canine optimist, who knows whatever happensat any given moment will be good. And this philosophy,...

The little girl, wearing a fancy white dress, was in a restaurant with her dad. When her chocolate soda came, her dad warned her to remember not to blow on the straw because the chocolate would bubble up and could ruin her dress. Can you guess what she did? Her dad...

Following the renowned psychologist and author Dr. Martin Seligman’s advice in his latest book, Flourish, I started making a list of three things, right before I went to sleep, that I was either grateful for during the day, or three moments that made me...

This is going to sound smug and yet here goes. In many ways, I feel like I’m finally the person I was always meant to be. It’s taken me a long time and a lot of effort and I’m most definitely still a work in progress and always will be, but I feel like I’m...

I have met so many people who have done the impossible. Actually, I’ve done the impossible several times myself. When I packed up and moved a home cross country and drove myself, a double bass and two dogs well over a thousand miles to our new destination. When I...

He was walking in Manhattan when he saw an elderly woman fall in the street. He rushed over to help her and she took his hand, looked up and let go of him and said, “Go back to where you came from.” He came from San Antonio, TX, but because he wore a turban, he was...

I’m guessing many of you reading this have been part of a 360 review, where everyone at your work gets to tell you what you’re not doing well and how you can improve. I used to coach an engineer who got such devastating feedback on his 360 review one year that it...

The debate is over, we’ve taken sides and that’s fine. We’re fortunate to live in a country where we getto vote for whomever we choose. However, any language or discussion that leads to anger and meanness is counter productive toeverything we do. Kindness can never be...

I found myself watching with half amusement, half fury as a car pulled out right in front of me while I was in a parking lot nearing my grocery. Had I been looking away for an instant, we would have crashed. Did this stupid driver just think I was going to stop out of...

Want people to remember something? Make it memorable. A professor brought in a guest lecturer. He immediately took off the hazmat suit he was wearing, turned on some music and proceeded to strip. He ended up stopping when he got down to his scanty gold booty...

In order to really work effectively with people, it’s essential to understand what they’re feeling. And a simplistic and unique way to pay more attention to the nuances of others’ feelings is to name their emotion. Not out loud, of course, but to yourself....

Most people, on their death beds, don’t wish they had stayed at the office longer answering more emails. Instead, their regrets typically begin with not living the kind of life they should have lived, or done the things they had dreamed of doing. In Seven...

According to Chris Voss, former FBI hostage negotiator and author of Never Split the Difference, being accepted and being understood are crucial in effective negotiation, and it seems equally important in most types of communication. He also states in his book...

When in Paris with my daughter years ago, she stopped someone to ask where the war was. She meant to ask where the station was, for a train we were catching, but the words in French are similar (la gare- station and la guerre-war) and it was easy to get the wrong...