One of my friends participated in a training program and told me what he heard in a lesson on listening reminded him of some of what I said in my book, in “Be Nice,” the second of my Six Simple Rules for a Better Life. Listening is an important "Be…
Like so many people, my smartphone has become a seemingly indispensable part of my life. I love much about it. I love looking up stuff on google, checking the weather, and accessing various social media. It's gotten me back into taking pictures, which I hadn't done (other than pics of…
During the week after the George Zimmerman verdict, Marcie (my wife) and I were driving in the car and heard a priest say in a radio interview that a primary cause for this tragedy is that Zimmerman didn't see the humanity of Trayvon Martin. We both thought that was very…
Listening well is an important skill in our lives—personally and professionally. In this guest post by Kevin Clarke, we hear about a dad and the hard work of really hearing what his son is saying to him. Kevin is a writer for America Magazine and this piece is reprinted with…
This is a guest post by Stephen Joseph. When I first saw the name of his article, I was thinking that the topic was a bit more specialized than we normally publish. On reading and enjoying it, I saw that its advice can be helpful in a variety of applications,…
A couple of years ago, I read a book called The Go-Giver. The book’s lessons are delivered in the form of a parable about a young go-getter who is introduced to an older, wiser man, who teaches him about go-giving—putting others’ interests first and adding value to their lives. It’s…
This is a guest post by Chelsea Carr “You did not listen to me!” The woman pointed at me from across the counter. “See? She listened… You did not listen to me.” Well, what can you say to that? Not much. Anyone working in retail knows that, to many customers,…
Martin E. P. Seligman is known as the father of the positive psychology movement. In positive psychology, the idea is to focus on helping people to be happier rather than solely focusing on treating conditions. Helping people to be happier is a huge driver for me and because I’m not…
Harnessing the power of thinking—knowing that what we think has a huge impact on how we feel, and then putting that knowledge to use—has had powerful results for me. I’ve also learned that discounting other people’s feelings is a mistake and I’ve gotten better over time at balancing the power…
I was pleased to recently have a piece I wrote published on the Pick the Brain web site. Pick the Brain publishes a lot of terrific articles and I highly recommend that you check it out. Here's an introduction to the piece I wrote, and a link to the full…
Two weeks ago, I was the keynote speaker for a wonderful conference for educators run by AdvanceED Illinois. You can read about it here. The conference was in Champaign, Illinois. The day before the speech, I had a super easy, smooth, on-time flight into Chicago’s O’Hare airport from Newark (New…
I'm pleased to have had a post I wrote published yesterday on one of my favorite blogs, the Tiny Buddha web site. Helping others' happiness is clearly a nice thing to do, and it will help you to be happier as well. Here's the first part of the piece, with…